Can't Keep My Eyes From the Circling Sky
by Kalee233
Summary: Frederick and Anne are going about their lives, trying to cope with a conundrum most Gen X-ers face: how to balance a growing load of adult responsibilities with the need to have fun and feel youthful. Sequel to "Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I".
1. Tell The World I'm Coming Home

**Chapter 1 – Tell the World I'm Coming Home**

_August 2011, Plymouth, Michigan_

_Frederick_

As the taxi pulls off the freeway after just a short run down from Detroit Metropolitan Airport and rolls through Plymouth, I let the sensation of homecoming wash over me. Because this is my real home, my first home; it's where I rightfully ought to be.

Suburbia is supposed to be blandly, mind-numbingly boring, but this time around, I'm unreasonably, ecstatically thrilled to find myself in the heart of the suburbs. After you've experienced what it's like to have nowhere to call home, you can't ever be tired of the warm, safe feeling of finally having a home to go back to. This is what I've waited a full 20 years for – the day I can return to the house I lived in as a child. And this time, I'm here to stay.

It's a day for firsts, because for the very first time in a decade or more, I've got real family of my own to greet me at the door. My sister Sophia pounces on me in a gigantic bear hug, which grows into a group hug with the addition of her four-year-old daughter Tiffany. They've been here for an entire summer by now, so they've had time to put away all the moving boxes, and Sophia can't wait to show me the comprehensive re-decoration job she's done.

When I last stepped into this house, it had a homey, lived-in quality, but in your usual '60s or '70s kind of way: with linoleum, carpet and lumpy overstuffed furniture co-existing in a sea of various orange, yellowish, olive and puce-colored textiles. It was the kind of interior you'd imagine from a retro sepia photograph brought into real life. Sophia's remake has updated everything to uber-chic contemporary standards, with even more character to boot because she's integrated little eclectic touches from the various places she's lived in, ranging from the Polynesian-inspired accent pieces scattered in the living room to the tatami corner in the master bedroom. Seeing what she's done with our house, I'm triply glad she was able to use the college funds Ed and I saved by getting scholarships to put herself through design school in the end; the human, personal touch from this being her own home has come together with her natural talent to create a masterpiece.

The best part has to be my new bedroom, the one which used to belong to Sophia when we were kids. There's no hint at all of her former pink floral color scheme, and she's redone everything in minimalist chrome and black. It's exactly the way I would've wanted it if I had a bachelor pad of my own. She's given me Dad's old desk, the one she took with her everywhere she moved to, and the matching desk chair, nicely covered in matt black leather. A glass-fronted display cabinet and all the walls are left bare on purpose; this is where I'll be displaying all my aircraft models and other paraphernalia, and she's leaving it entirely up to me to decide just how I want to go about it. The entire setup of the room is Sophia's way of acknowledging that she sees me as a grown man now, rather than an irritating little brother who's always underfoot at the wrong times, and it's both touching and flattering all at once.

In short, Sophia's done a perfect job with the house. Most designers would throw out everything old to create a uniformly new look, but she knows what to keep, and how to work around it. All the furniture Dad made himself is still there: the dining table and chairs, and all the bed frames. Even though everything's been nicely varnished, Sophia's kept another special touch too - the word "Wentworth" I carved into each piece of Dad's handmade wooden furniture with my penknife the day before we moved out, in the tiniest letters I could make so our tenants wouldn't notice and complain about the furniture being defaced or something like that. I never confessed to Sophia about it, of course; so the only clue I have that she's seen and deliberately kept my carvings is the minute attention she's given to every other tiny detail in every corner of the house.

Yeah, right, I could just go on and on singing Sophia's praises like this; until I find that she has transformed my room into a shrine to Hello Kitty. Not _my_ room, of course, but the one that Ed and I used to sleep in when we were kids. Just about everything in the room is pink and white, and the face of that... uh... feline, is staring at me from virtually everywhere. Like for example, the curtains Sophia has hung from the top bunk as a kind of canopy for the bottom bunk bed.

It's obvious which bunk is meant for Tiffany, because the top bunk, the one I used to sleep in as a child, is occupied by a huge inflatable white rabbit sprawling on its stomach. To my admittedly undiscerning eye, this creature looks pretty much like a rabbit version of Hello Kitty. Sophia and Tiffany must've seen me gaping at it, because out of nowhere, they're both trying to explain its origins to me.

"That's Miffy," says Sophia. "You can guess why Tiffany likes her almost as much as Hello Kitty." Oh, of course. Both are white. Both are irresistibly cute to the fifty percent of the world population that's female. Me, I am completely missing the point, though.

"No, Mommy, that's _Walter_," says Tiffany. "See? His face is different. And he's lying down."

"Oh sorry, excuse me. This isn't Miffy, it's a character called Walter which was created by an Asian artist. They displayed it in a museum exhibition last year, and Tiffany liked it so much we just had to get the mini version."

Mini version, my foot – that inflatable rabbit's as big as I was when Dad made the bunk bed for Ed and me. In my whole life, I've only known one Walter. Correction – I've only known _of_ one Walter, because I've never actually met him. And any namesake of Walter Elliot is the last thing I want sleeping in my bunk bed.

Even though I know it's absolutely infantile, I can't help but wonder how I can sneak a porcupine into the house someday when Sophia's not looking. This kind of thinking is bringing me right down to Tiffany's level, and if only she knew what's on my mind now, Tiffany would probably kill me this very second.

* * *

><p>It's been a long time since I last felt the pull of family as strongly as this; in fact, I can safely say I haven't had this feeling in more than a decade, not since the time when I was engaged to Anne Elliot. But that's the power of family; they're the only ones who can make you do things you'd otherwise never want to do. I'd be lying if I said I don't miss the adrenaline rush of flying a fighter jet, and I'd equally be lying if I said the Air Force was all glitz and glamour. True, my days in Afghanistan and Iraq have given me some of the most gruesome memories of my life. Still, the net balance is positive; I'd have wanted to stay there till I'm too old to fly, if Sophia hadn't asked me to come back at the end of my 10-year service commitment.<p>

"I've already lost enough of the people I love, without you going out there risking your life every day," she'd said. "Please find another job, one where I know you'll be coming home for sure."

Sadly, it's true. My brother-in-law was an admiral, forty-five years old and fit as a fiddle; yet he's gone just like that, right in the middle of a triathlon. They were living in Okinawa when it happened just this spring, and that's what brought Sophia and Tiffany back to the US, to build a new life in our old home. With a pull like that, how could I resist? It's kind of warped to think of myself as a father figure to Tiffany when her mom is my sister, but it isn't that far from the truth. I want to play a role in giving Tiffany a stable, happy, all-American childhood, the type of childhood I'd have wished for myself, and that's the real force that brought me back.

Back to Detroit, the same city where Anne Elliot's living in, to the best of my information. I wonder if she felt the same pull when she'd moved back from Everett way back in '01? It's not until now, when I'm doing practically the same thing too, that I really understand just how straightforward it all is; at those times when your family needs you in the face of loss, there's absolutely no competition to speak of between your family and your dreams. It may be painful for personal ambition to take a back seat, but yet doing the right thing feels so natural that it gives you the strength to put your fallen aspirations behind you for good and to shelve away any regrets you may have so they won't eat you alive.

Only Anne Elliot's story is very different from mine; for her, it's not such a simple story as just coming back to Detroit to take care of her family. It's been 10 years now, and I'm sure her grandma can't possibly have lived for this long with Stage 4 cancer. Yet not only has she never contacted me in all these years, she's never showed up at any of the class reunions or gatherings since graduation either. She might as well have vanished from the face of the earth, the way her former girlfriends never mention anything about her or her life, even though Tom and James have been asking them about Anne every time they meet up. That's the worst part of it; the people she's thrown aside aren't limited to just me alone, but also include all my friends from MIT, maybe hers as well. She's wiped us out of her life as though we never existed. As though we're not good enough for her any more, now that she's moved back into the Elliot family. Knowing what I do about the Elliot mentality, it's not much of a stretch to guess that she's probably living in the lap of luxury right now; maybe she's married to someone filthy rich, definitely someone with business value to them. Idling her time away with the country-club set, with their fancy yachts and shiny limos, practically dripping in designer labels and jewelry, I'll bet. And her path isn't going to cross with mine anytime soon; I'm far from hanging around in the rarefied circles that those Elliots move around in. So what if I'm also living in the Detroit area now? I could've still been in Afghanistan or Iraq, and it wouldn't make a single iota of difference to the probability of my running into her by chance.

Once upon a time, I believed that Anne Elliot could practically become my family; she was that close to me. Now I know that my vision of Anne and I building a life together was just the fantasy of a lonely kid yearning for stability and a sense of belonging; a kid with no parents to turn to and two siblings living abroad, too far away for him to really feel their presence. The same kid who naively believed that joining the Air Force would be pure fun and excitement; a complacently smug kid who thought he'd seen the worst that society could dish out to him, not knowing how sheltered he still was in the big scheme of things; sheltered enough, at least, to take world peace for granted. That kid has grown into a man now, and in fact, having been right in the middle of the War on Terror, I've seen and experienced much more than most men in this country have. So what's Anne Elliot to me now? I've got no more need to hang onto that kind of pseudo-family, when the only family that will ever matter are the ones who're tied to me by blood, the ones who've gone through the same thick and thin as I did and lived the same life as I have, literally from the day I was born.

Growing up has given me a new perspective about my family; there was once a time I didn't appreciate them the same way I do now, but I'm long past that. Sophia's nagging, and Dad's when he was alive, used to be a running irritation constantly buzzing in my ear; I took it that they were comparing me to Ed in ways where I'd always come up short, and I resented them for it. Because I won't apologize for the way I've been born, how I can't stand sitting still and keeping quiet, and how I always need some kind of thrills and spills to really feel alive. How I just can't be a pure bookworm the way Ed is; it was only when the carrot of an Air Force pilot slot was dangled in front of me that I actually felt _motivated_ about hitting the books hard. Only after I grew much older did I realize how everything they've said to me ties back to how much my family values education, and come to recognize that this was one of the main reasons, if not _the_ reason, why I've been able to walk down a different path from the stereotypical kid in the 'hood.

As I grew older, I came to understand what a difficult decision Sophia had to make when moving us out of our childhood home. Our neighbors offered to help us, even to take us in, and at thirteen, I couldn't identify with what I thought was her pride in keeping us from being beholden to others. It wasn't till she was getting married and I was heading to college that she told me her real reason for moving us out wasn't about pride at all; it was because she wanted to cut our costs and earn some rental income so Ed and I could go to college with the minimum of financial aid, so we could start our working lives without being saddled by student loan debt. That's when I came to appreciate the implicit trust she had in us; she'd had faith that we believed enough in going to college to stay focused towards getting there, regardless of where the other kids in our neighborhood were headed. Susceptible as I was to peer pressure at the time, she'd still believed I had the strength not to cave in where it counted. Not that she had much choice about putting us through the public school system anyway; move or no move, there's no way she could've possibly sprung for private school for Ed and me.

And no matter how preoccupied they were, Dad, Mom and Sophia must've taught me well in the end, because getting a good education is precisely how I've come back to where I am today. It's also the social leveler that gave me the audacity to conceive of joining my future to Anne Elliot's, despite the vast difference between her economic status and mine at that time. Having access to education is the reason why we have a flat society today, where anyone can make it with the right amount of ability and effort, regardless of the circumstances they were born with. In this society, it isn't my fault that my so-called engagement with Anne Elliot turned out to be such a fiasco. No, none of it's my fault at all; the fault's all hers.

* * *

><p><em>Disclaimer: The actual "Walter" is a work by Singaporean artist Dawn Ng, which has been displayed at the "Art Garden" exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum. <em>


	2. Oh Charlie You're So Fine

**Chapter 2 – Oh Charlie You're so Fine**

_End August 2011_

_Frederick_

Tiffany may be a Croft by name; but at heart, she's a Wentworth kid through and through. For starters, she's really smart. Sophia's been teaching her how to read, so she can actually point out a good number of the words in her storybooks when we read bedtime stories to her. What completely floors me, though, is that she can do one thing I've never quite mastered no matter how hard I tried – she can function respectably in two different languages. In fact, she's singing this song in Japanese every day, every time she gets the chance.

"Ten-shi no pant-su wa…"

"What song is this?" There's only one word I can make out, and it sounds like "pants"; I'm not sure if it's my mind playing tricks on me, or if there really is such a word in Japanese.

"It's called 'The Angel's Underpants'", Tiffany explains. "I learned it in school in Japan."

"It… uh… teaches you Japanese grammar and sentence structure," stammers Sophia sheepishly, trying to cover. _Yeah, right_. I wish I had such interesting nursery rhymes to teach _me_ grammar and sentence structure back in school.

Maybe it's my famously short attention span, or maybe I haven't been around kids enough to develop the kind of patience you need when you've got a kid in your life 24-7, because that underpants song gets old on me really, really fast. To get her to stop, I threaten to sing her to sleep at bedtime for every day this carries on, and _this_ threat packs more serious punch than you'd think – when I sing, I sound like a chicken waiting for slaughter, and I'll bet you'd pay me to stop.

She's fearless by any standards, not just girl standards. On day two, I lop the training wheels off her bike, simply because I need something to do for kicks; after all, when I was around her age, I was already hopping little curbs on my two-wheeler, swinging from the guard rail of my bunk bed like Tarzan, and starting to illicitly discover the joys of playing with Ed's skateboard. Instead of walking her by the handlebars, I teach her to ride by pushing her from behind; once she's built up enough momentum, I can just let go without her being any the wiser that she's on her own. And she just goes on and on, until she hits a seam in the road and takes her first spill. Physically, I know she'll be fine; she's covered head to toe in protective gear. But still, I have to hand it to her when she picks herself up, gets back on the bike and pushes off again right away, without a whimper or a tear. A boy couldn't have done any better; _I_ could hardly have done better myself as a kid.

She's got amazing perseverance. I didn't expect her to take me up on my threat about the singing, but she pushes me till I've got to make good on it. By that move, she's got me caught short, because I belatedly realize that all the songs I normally listen to need major censorship on the lyrics to make them even half suitable for her ears. But I used to be a Wentworth kid too, and so I'm not giving up on building my repertoire of G-rated songs to take her on with. So far, I'm on track to nailing _Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting_, and the _Madagascar_ theme song. Good going, Fred, even if I do say it myself.

She's tough, and she rolls with the punches. Sometimes she gets sad when she misses her daddy; but rather than wallowing in it, she focuses on the future instead with an optimism and courage beyond her years. Like the way she's full of how she'll be starting preschool soon; she's been getting Sophia and me to count down the days with her. I've offered to do the morning preschool runs for Sophia, because she's not a morning person and my years in the Air Force have conditioned me to waking up at all kinds of unearthly hours; I couldn't sleep in even if I tried. So I end up being the one making breakfast for all three of us every morning, just like Sophia used to do for Ed and me years ago. I couldn't be happier to do so, when this little bit of chipping in is far from enough to reciprocate for all the years she's been filling in as a mom to us boys.

* * *

><p>Parking along the street in front of the school, I get out of my RAV4, unbuckle Tiffany, and lift her out of her car seat in the back. Then I hand her the pink Hello Kitty backpack, give her a high five, and she's off and running. This is the way Wentworth kids handle the first day of school, and I'm as proud as any of the yuppie dads hanging around, even if I'm not her dad actually. But it is the first day of school after all, and so I still linger a little just in case anything happens, getting back into the RAV4 so I won't blow the whole breezy-farewell thing by showing her so blatantly that I'm lingering.<p>

And then, I get a really strange sense of déjà vu. I'm dead sure I know the silver-grey Volkswagen Golf that's just swung into the space right in front of me from somewhere, even if there're probably thousands of silver Golfs all over the country. Of course, it's exactly the same model Anne Elliot used to drive in college, and this one's somewhat the worse for wear, just like you'd expect of any car that's been chugging around for 15 years. A minute later, I get that sinking feeling as it turns out my intuition has been spot on, because who else but Anne Elliot in the flesh comes out of the car. She opens the rear door, and lifts out a pudgy little boy with glasses who promptly wraps his arms and legs around her torso like a baby koala. Nudging the car door closed with her hip, she carries the boy towards the schoolhouse, bending slightly backward with the effort; he's probably at least half her weight, I'll bet. The boy's face is contorted as he bawls and bawls, fat tears running down his face while she strokes his back, murmuring words of comfort to him. I can't hear their actual words from where I'm sitting in the RAV4, of course; and so it's like watching a pantomime being acted out to the soundtrack of the Eminem music playing from my car stereo.

Even though I recognize the face and features as Anne's in an instant, this Anne Elliot I'm looking at is a complete stranger to my eyes, my memory and my imagination. An oversized watch with a fat leather strap accentuates her too-thin wrist, and she's wearing a drab, frumpy blouse-and-pants ensemble, the type my mom used to wear. Obviously, her sense of size and fit is gone, because the clothes bag visibly on her. And from the way her hair is long and scraggly, it looks like she hasn't bothered to get a proper haircut in months either. Before this day, I only had two concepts of Anne Elliot: the spunky, sassy chick with a pixie haircut who lives only in my memory, and the ostentatiously put-together socialite that I'm sure she has morphed into. One of these Annes may never really have existed, at least not as the girl I'd believed her to be; and the other, the latter one, is the one I don't want or need to see, ever again. But this third Anne, the physical Anne I have no choice but to see because she's dropping off her kid right under my nose, is none of the above. The other Annes in my mind were like phantoms that'd never leave me alone no matter how much I wanted them to; strangely enough, this real Anne actually looks like a phantom – she's so thin the wind could blow her away, and for the moment she faces in the direction of my windscreen, I can see the hollow expression in her eyes.

Over the next few days, I see the same scene playing out again and again, and each time I notice tiny new details as the same little pantomime unfolds before me, almost as if it's being replayed in slow-mo. Like how the little boy is wearing preppy Burberry Kids and Ralph Lauren, while she's always wearing too-big clothes which have seen better days. I see how she pries the boy from her at the schoolhouse doorway and hands him his backpack. But then she lingers a little too long as she makes her way down the steps; and the boy tugs fretfully at her blouse, while throwing the backpack down on the floor. So she turns back and walks into the building holding his hand, picking up the backpack and carrying it as she goes. And if I hang around long enough, I see her coming out of the schoolhouse after a full fifteen minutes or more; she's weary and hunched even though it's just the beginning of the day.

It looks like somewhere along the way, Anne's gotten married and she's raised one spoiled brat of a son. Surprised much? I suppose I shouldn't be; after all, isn't that what I expected of her after she returned to the Elliot fold? But yet, I am. Because she looks like the exact opposite of what I'd picture her to look like after more than 10 years of immersion in the Elliot world. None of the theories I've ever formed about Anne Elliot could possibly explain why she's living and sending her kid to school in Plymouth and not Grosse Pointe; why she's still driving the same Golf after more than 15 years; or why she dresses so dowdily and looks so fragile. I sure can't explain how a girl as sensible as the Anne Elliot I thought I used to know could grow into a woman who'd pamper her son so thoroughly that she can't even drop him off at preschool without him throwing a mega tantrum on her every day for almost an entire week; or for that matter, why she's the one dropping off her son when these are the type of menial tasks the Elliots would never deign to lift a finger for. True, she looks patently unhappy, but then I'd be the same way too if I were surrounded by the Elliots day and night; and I _did_ offer her another alternative, didn't I? It's not my fault she chose not to take up my offer; or more accurately, that she flung my offer right back into my face after making me believe, for a whole year no less, that she'd taken it and was actually happy to do so.

So I tell myself that maybe it would be better if I don't find out the answers after all, and I stop lingering; I give Tiffany her high five when I drop her off, then pull away cleanly and immediately. Tiffany's a Wentworth kid, and that means a quick, cheerful tantrum-free farewell when it's off to preschool; she's a kid who likes new challenges, and takes them on with spirit and aplomb, not like _some_ other people's kids. We Wentworths may not be the grandest of folks, but _we_, myself included, know how to bring up our kids the right way; never mind that I don't have any kids of my own just yet.

* * *

><p>Just a little more than a week into preschool, Tiffany actually obliges me when I ask her to sing something other than that underpants song she's so crazy about.<p>

"Oh Charlie you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind -"

"Who's Charlie?" I'm amused and curious; I've never heard of this Charlie person before, and I wonder if he's real, or just some new imaginary friend Tiffany has conjured up from nowhere.

"He's this kid at school," she explains. "He's my bestest friend, and I'm gonna marry him when I grow up. He's _so_ cool."

"Why is – um, Charlie - so cool?" Hmm, this is new. Interesting.

Tiffany looks thoughtful. "He has funny-looking glasses. Just like Harry Potter. He can do that dance from _Chicken Little_. And he lets me play Angry Birds with him on his iPad."

No kidding – a four year old bringing his own iPad to school? Honestly, kids these days are growing up with way too many gadgets on them – and _expensive_ ones to boot. When I was that age, I'm not even sure I knew how to use the humble dial telephone; yup, that's the antiquated contraption that's all but obsolete these days. I make a mental note to have a word with Sophia before Tiffany starts lobbying for an iPad of her own, too.

* * *

><p>Sophia's planning to set up her own interior design business, and during this period while she's busy scouting for a shop front in town, I offer to pick up Tiffany when preschool ends at midday as well. And on the first day I start picking her up from school, she's pointing in the direction of Anne Elliot's silver Golf as she runs up to the RAV4 to greet me.<p>

"Uncle Freddy, look! That's Charlie! Can we go over to say hi?"

There's no sign at all of anyone who could be named Charlie in sight, unless you count a pair of chubby legs sticking out from the open rear door of the Golf. There's every sign of Anne Elliot though, leaning into the car and probably saying something to the owner of the legs. We walk right up to where Anne is standing, Tiffany pulling me by the hand.

The boy's lying on his back in the backseat, drinking milk from a baby bottle with a hugely satisfied look on his chubby face. When he sees us, he quickly chucks the bottle down on the seat and stands up in a flash. Completely unembarrassed about being caught in such a baby act, he greets us with the most cherubic smile, and it just floors me how this same kid can be both an angel and a devil all rolled into one. He's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, indeed.

"You must be Charlie Elliot," I say. "Nice to meet you, young man." I stoop so I'm at his eye level, and hold out my hand to shake his. This is a deliberate dig on my part; I know such formalities would scare any kid off, but for a Little Mr. Preppy like this, he's practically asking for it.

"My name is Charles Musgrove Jr," the kid protests in a hoity-toity little voice. He ignores my outstretched hand; instead, he and Tiffany waste no time to squeeze themselves into the half of the back seat that isn't taken up by his child seat, and burrow into his backpack for the iPad.

Musgrove, huh? So that's the name of Anne's husband, and this is even more evidence that I'm a brainless old sod; if Anne's married, it stands to reason that her kid's last name wouldn't be _Elliot_.

"Fred. Frederick. How are you?" Apparently I'm a barbarian as well as an idiot, because Anne addresses me first, before I've thought of anything else to say.

"Good." I draw out the word as long as possible. That's to show I'm not just answering the question in the usual sense, but I _really_ mean I'm doing good; never been better, in fact. "And how are you?"

"Good." Her version of the word is short and quick, like she wants to get it out of the way as soon as possible. It's the kind of "good" you say when what you really want to say is that you're actually not doing that good at all.

Just as an excuse to turn away, I rap on the sheet metal of the Golf .

"Tiff-any!" I call sharply. "It's time to go, or else Mommy will be waiting." It's not intentional, but I certainly won't mind if Anne gets the wrong idea. She's married, so why shouldn't I be as well?

"Okaaay," drawls Tiffany, but neither she nor Charlie makes any move to put away the iPad. At four going on five, she's already perfected the art of the eye-roll, and I feel massively sorry for both Sophia and myself in advance. Heaven help us when she actually becomes a tween. I drum my fingers on the doorjamb until she finally decides she's had enough of her iPad game, and she straightens herself with a big, fat, dramatic sigh for effect.

"Bye, Charlie," says Tiffany as she hauls herself out of the car. "And bye, Aunty Annie."

_Aunty Annie_. So that's what that Charlie kid has taught her to call Anne. The intimacy of it all is enough to make me want to vomit, so I figure the best thing to do is to clear out with Tiffany in tow, before I actually chuck my cookies.

"See you around," I say to Anne, not out of any real desire to see her, but with the certain knowledge that there won't be any way I can possibly escape from bumping into her every now and then. And I'm off before she's got any chance to wish me the same.

* * *

><p><em>Disclaimer: I'm not sure exactly who to attribute "The Angel's Underpants" to, but this nursery song appears in Eiji Okuda's 2006 movie "Nagai Sanpo" (A Long Walk). <em>

_The lyrics of Tiffany's song about Charlie are adapted from the 1982 song "Mickey" by Toni Basil._


	3. Name of Elliot, Ghost of Anne

**Chapter 3 – Name of Elliot, Ghost of Anne**

_Early October 2011_

_Frederick_

Being the parent, as opposed to _not_ being the parent, makes a whole world of difference. When my commercial pilot training starts and I'm no longer conveniently hanging around the house with nothing better to do, we end up with no choice but to find new after-school care options for Tiffany, because Sophia's in the thick of setting up shop too. And the answer is obvious when we ask Tiffany which of her friends she wants to hang out with after school. Being the parent, Sophia gets to make the final decision; and to her, there's no reason why Tiffany shouldn't go to the Musgroves' if they're willing to take her on. _Not_ being the parent, I've got no way to establish my veto powers, even if I spilled the beans on my entire miserable history with Anne Elliot. Of course, Sophia knows nothing about why I could, or should, have any reason to object to the Musgroves; I told her I had a girlfriend in college, but that's where her information stops short. Which means that in Sophia's mind, my college "girlfriend" could have been just one girl or many of them, all equally forgettable to her. As far as Sophia's concerned, I use that term to refer to any girl I've gone on more than two dates with, so Anne has merged with all the other "girlfriends" into a single, amorphous entity with a zillion different faces.

Sophia's the one who negotiates the details with the Musgroves; this is one of the times when it's good to _not_ be the parent, because that way I don't need to get personally involved. It turns out they're more in our backyard then I could've ever imagined; they're actually living in that big duplex just a block away from us, well within walking distance. As a gesture of thanks to them for agreeing to babysit Tiffany in the afternoons, Sophia suggests we invite the Musgrove family over for dinner on Saturday night, and who am I to say no?

* * *

><p>"There's <em>nine<em> of them," I protest. "Aren't they taking advantage of our goodwill?"

"Now, Fred, you know that's not a very nice thing to say," tuts Sophia, making me feel like I'm ten years old all over again. She's the consummate hostess with everything in control - there's chicken roasting in the oven; a pot of stew bubbling on the stove; a home-baked chocolate cake, complete with a fancy icing job, sitting in the refrigerator; and she's talking to me over the aroma of the pilaf she's frying. To make myself marginally useful, I've been keeping Tiffany out of her hair and away from the chocolate cake, but other than that, I don't think Anne Elliot and her ilk are worth all the sweat she's put into creating this spread, which they'll probably turn their noses up at anyway.

Eventually, it's a party of seven who turn up on our doorstep: besides little Charlie and his dad of course, there's a down-home type of older couple who look just like the way they depict "Grandpa" and "Grandma" in Tiffany's picture books; a pair of tall, blonde teenagers who're twins in the style of Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, meaning they look enough alike for you to know they're twins, but yet different enough that you can tell them apart; and a plumpish lady, probably in her twenties, with short curly hair and a round face, wearing the kind of retro dress you see at swing parties. So, it looks like Anne Elliot has chosen to default on this party after all. Interesting.

The reason why I know that the stocky younger guy in this party is Charlie's dad, is because very often, he's the one who comes to pick up Charlie after school in a flashy, brand new, bright red Tesla roadster. Most of the times I see him, he's wearing T-shirts, jeans and Birkenstocks, like what he has on tonight; and he's got a ponytail. He couldn't be farther from my image of what Anne Elliot's husband would be; I thought she'd marry one of those buttoned-up prep-school-and-Ivy-League chaps with a fat bank account, a summer home in Martha's Vineyard, and a whole string of suffixes to his name. This guy, he might have all the rest of the above for all I know, but he's the exact opposite of buttoned-up and preppy. And there's one part of the whole puzzle that just doesn't fit – from the way the lady in the retro dress is hanging on to him, it's clear she's got to be his wife or girlfriend, and _she_ is definitely not Anne Elliot. Even if nothing else can shock me about this family anymore, I'm pretty sure it'd be farfetched to presume she's his mistress; if that were the case, he'd hardly parade her around with an entire posse of extended family.

"Well, if it isn't Harvard Hottie," titters one of the twins to the other, and from the way they're giggling and nudging each other, they're probably sharing some kind of private joke; most likely, they've noticed the MIT T-shirt I'm wearing. I'm not even sure what I hope to achieve with that in the first place - to show that I still fit into my clothes from college? To emphasize that I'm still proud to have been a member of the MIT community? None of it matters anymore, because the intended audience is absent without apologies.

The older lady – the Grandma – silences the twins with a warning look, and starts the introductions. We learn that Henry and Lucy Musgrove are the proud grandparents of Charles Jr., and that the twins are the sisters of Charles Sr. I've got to stop thinking of the twins as elongated versions of Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, because they've got names of their own: Henrietta and Louisa, respectively. And Charlie has a little brother who sends his regrets, because unfortunately he's down with a bout of flu and can't come. That leaves the parents of Charlie Musgrove, and -

"Where is Anne?" I ask, before I remember that to everyone around here, I've got no reason to even know that Anne Elliot exists.

"How do you know Anne?" demands one of the twins - Louisa, I think. They're quick on the uptake, for sure. The rest are probably dying to know too, because everyone's looking at me.

"Uncle Freddy knows Aunty Annie because we went to say hello when she picked Charlie up from school," explains Tiffany helpfully, looking to Charlie. I'm not sure if this really makes things any better, because the idea of me taking my own initiative to chat up Anne Elliot while doing the preschool run - or even worse, that I'm doing the preschool run as an excuse to chat up Anne Elliot - isn't exactly one I want to put into their heads.

So I explain, "I knew Anne in college. She was in my year, and she was also an aerospace engineering major, so I saw her in some of my classes."

"So you know my sister?" the lady with Charles Sr. asks. "What was she like in college? She always says those were the best years of her life, but she never tells me _anything_ else about it."

"Different," I say. "Besides, for me, college was a really long time ago." The best years of her life, huh? If that really was the case, then why would she want to walk away from everything that's left of her life in MIT?

"Different how? Was she happier? Anne never has any fun; I don't know if she even knows how to. She's a really nice person, but she can be a little boring. Did she actually, like, have a _life_ when she was in college?" Henrietta joins in the fray too.

"I dunno," I say, shrugging. "I was a frat boy, and she was a good girl. 'Nuff said." Technically, both parts of this statement have some truth in them, and if these two comments lead the Musgroves to some other conclusion when put together, I'm not claiming any responsibility for it. They still look skeptical, though; probably because Anne hasn't changed at all as far as they're concerned. To them, she was a good girl before, and she's still being a good girl now.

* * *

><p>Everything I see and hear over dinner is an ode to the misery of Anne Elliot. For the entire meal, Charlie doesn't take his eyes off the iPad at all. Keeping him entertained and fed is the work of two adults at the same time: his grandma cuts up everything into bite-size pieces for him to pop into his mouth, while Charles Sr. holds the iPad and plays memory games with him. It seems that when they're at home, this job isn't half as labor-intensive; Anne is the one who usually does it single-handedly, for both of her sister's kids. Of course, as Mary Musgrove nee Elliot points out, her kids are always better behaved when they're with Anne; somehow, they simply adore their sugar-and-spice-and-everything-nice Aunty Annie. Tiffany slides off her chair and scoots over; the novelty of it all is irresistible to her when TV, books, laptops and the like are all strictly forbidden during mealtimes at our house. But Sophia and I simultaneously shoot her a firm glare, and she skulks back to her seat with a pout.<p>

Crossing paths with Anne Elliot in Plymouth, of all places, turns out to be not as much of an act of chance as I'd originally believed. My parents set up home here because it's an easy commuting distance to both the Ann Arbor and Dearborn campuses, where Dad and Mom taught respectively; and serendipitously, it's near the airport too, which makes it very easy for me to juggle living with Sophia even after I start flying commercially for Delta. Funnily enough, the Musgroves moved here a couple years ago for reasons that aren't that different from the ones my family had; they needed a bigger place to accommodate the extended family when Charles and Mary had kids, and they're thinking ahead about how to keep the twins close even after they start college, which they're targeting to be at one of the UMich campuses. And Anne is living with them in some kind of strange babysitting arrangement; by day, she's working at the airport in her engineering job with Delta Airlines*, and although they didn't plan the move here particularly to convenience her, the proximity suits everybody all too well - they can tap on her to do the school run in the mornings, and even to scoot out of her lunch break to cover for Charles on days when he can't make it to pick up his kid from preschool. This revelation underlines the inevitability of it all; even if Anne hadn't shown up practically in my backyard, the sheer fact that she's continued to work in aviation, as have I, would've set her up on a collision course with me sooner or later.

There's one piece of good news at least - there's not a chance that I'll run into any of the other Elliots anytime soon, because Walter Elliot can't hold onto his money and has spent his way to Florida, while ELMSCO is teetering on the edge of insolvency. This is completely new to me, and it just goes to show that for all their self-importance, the Elliots aren't such big shots after all. I've been following the news faithfully whenever I can, and yet I never heard about the downfall of ELMSCO because the news focuses on the big boys like the GM's, the Ford's, and maybe a little of the next tier of parts suppliers like the Delphi's and the Visteon's, but nobody bothers about a sub-sub contractor like ELMSCO. Privately held firms, in any case, can keep a lot of dirty linen private. Small wonder the Elliots like living in their own little bubble so much, because if they were to step outside of it, they'd realize what small fry they are to everyone else in the world.

Well, the real whammy is, it all boils down to this: my life has ended up being intertwined with Anne Elliot's again not just because of chance, and not just because of fate; it's a logical, unavoidable result of the life choices that she and I have made even while living parallel lives in separate bubbles. This is the perfect irony - it was aviation that drew me to her in the first place, and yet now, it's also aviation that makes it impossible to extricate my path completely from hers, no matter how much I want to.

* * *

><p>Over dessert, Henrietta and Louisa finally realize why they think I look familiar to them; after they've put two and two together, they figure out that this isn't the first time they've seen my face.<p>

"Aren't you that pilot from the Thunderbirds? We have the poster at home, and it's got your autograph on it. Can we call you Captain Wentworth?" asks Henrietta excitedly.

"Or maybe we should call you Captain America," coos Louisa, practically oozing syrup with every syllable.

"Just call me Frederick," I say, trying to sound as offhand as I can about this one. "Or you can call me Fred, or Freddy, or Fritz, or whatever. Take your pick." This whole "Captain" business is a sore point with me, because I was Captain Wentworth once, and then I got past that when I was promoted to Major, but now I'm not anything anymore. Talk about going from hero to zero. And after months of training on a simulator, I'll still have to spend who knows how many flying hours as a First Officer before I can become "Captain" again.

"Why aren't you married yet? Or do you have a girlfriend?" Mrs. Musgrove asks. "You seem like a good boy, and the girl who catches you is one lucky girl."

"Because I like the freedom of being a swinging bachelor," I say, deliberately keeping my tone frivolous enough that nobody knows if I'm joking or not. "Besides, who needs the institution of marriage these days?"

Sophia discreetly raises an eyebrow at me; it's her there-are-minors-in-the-house warning signal. In due consideration for said minors, I stop there, though censoring what comes out of my mouth doesn't mean I have to censor my thoughts as well. And it's true, really, that I don't believe in the institution of marriage. Who needs to exchange fancy vows when the real proof of the pudding's in whether you're even still together ten, twenty, thirty years down the road? In this day and age, the permutations are infinite: there are people who walk down the aisle with someone new once every five years or so; and those who devote all their lives to someone, even living together and having kids without ever seeing the need to get that formal piece of paper; and any number of possibilities in between. Of all people, I should know that best of all; I believed in the institution of marriage once before, and look where that's gotten me to now. See, it's still landed me empty-handed, all the same.

* * *

><p>The Musgroves end up falling into the category of "family friends"; they're not exactly my first choice of people to hang out with, but I still end up spending a lot of time with them out of duty. Like for example, when Sophia volunteers to have Charlie and his little brother Wally over for lengthy play dates on some of the weekends to balance out our babysitting debt with the Musgrove. And Sophia's obligations are my obligations too; she's put Ed and me first for years, so it shouldn't kill me to take on the kids every now and then so she's got some free time to put herself first for once. When they're at our house, I insist the same rules apply to them and Tiffany, and with a little creativity, I end up enforcing them without too much difficulty; at lunchtime, I spring for pizza or bring them to Chuck E. Cheese, but if and only if they're willing to comply with the no-toys-books-or-gadgets-at-mealtimes rule. Things get easier as I build up more cred with them; it kind of helps that they really look up to an Uncle Freddy who flies airplanes, and also that I'm able to pull a convincing tough-guy act. If Anne's misery is somewhat mitigated by my taking the two little boys in hand for a bit, that's entirely an accidental by-product of me doing my duty. So don't get me wrong, man, I'm just being Wentworth here, and not being Fred.<p>

Charles is sorely in need of a bro, and some weekends, Sophia watches the kids while he enlists my company to engage in various types of simulated car racing: whether it's actual karting, or virtual racing on everything ranging from NASCAR to Formula 1 on his Xbox. In terms of the actual kick I get from them, these cheap thrills are nothing compared to what I used to do, but after a whole week of practicing commercial flight procedures on a simulator, I'm usually up for any kind of fun on the weekends to break the monotony a little. And maybe I'm also in need of a bro to chill with at times, especially since my own pals are scattered all over the country.

When spring comes and we're able to spend more time outside, I find more outlets to occupy the kids and give Sophia a breather. We sign Tiffany up for a mini-soccer program, and the Musgroves enroll Charlie in the same program too. Just as a further excuse to get out of the house, I'm all too happy to take on responsibility for bringing them there and keeping an eye on them during practice. By this time, it's not just the kids and Charles who're happy to have me around - the twins also tag along when Charles and I go karting, and when I take the kids to their mini-soccer sessions on Sundays, and I don't mind; the more the merrier, isn't it?

Looks like, I'm well on my way to desensitizing myself to Anne Elliot's presence. The times the boys are with me, she'll just drop them off and go, which spares me the need for any kind of long conversation with her; and on the weekdays that Tiffany's at the Musgroves', I limit my dealings with her to just pick-up duty as well. And on those occasions that Sophia, Tiffany and I are invited to hang out with the entire Musgrove family, I've got plenty of other company to choose from. It appears like Anne's keeping her distance from me, and regardless of whether or not she's doing that on purpose, I've got absolutely no problem with it. After all, it's not as if I'm short of other things to do; I can always gravitate towards those people who actually welcome me.

* * *

><p>*Northwest Airlines merged with Delta Airlines in 2008. After the merger, only one corporate identity (that of Delta) was retained. Hence, Anne is technically considered as working with Delta Airlines at this point, even though she hasn't changed job from her original employment with Northwest (as described in <em>Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I<em>).


	4. Geriatric Gen X

**Chapter 4 – Geriatric Gen X**

_Spring 2012_

_Anne_

"Fred-_die_," Lulu is saying for what must be the thousandth time. I hope nobody hears me actually gagging, because this is making me feel sicker than any morning sickness Mary ever had when she was expecting Charlie and Wally. Maybe I'm the ageing relic they make me out to be after all, because I actually like the sound of the name "Frederick". Somehow, it's befitting of how rugged he is. In times when expediency is necessary, I use "Fred", but never, ever "Freddie". Because when it's uttered by anyone over the age of five, "Freddie" is just too cute, and completely not him at all. And he hates it, too – or at least, he used to hate it back when we were in MIT. I'm not so sure of anything with regards to Frederick anymore.

Like why on earth, when we're now supposed to be mature adults and acting as good role models to the kids, he's behaving much more childishly than he ever did in college, even in freshman year. He's regressed into, I don't know, a Neanderthal from our pre-history or something. Fred knows he can't sing to save his life, and that's why back in college, he'd subject himself to any other kind of embarrassment to avoid answering to any challenge to sing. Yet now, he's parading his awful singing skills all over the place for comic effect with the kids. Whenever he's the one dropping in to pick up Tiffany in the evenings, I know right away because I hear him before I see him. There'll be the off-key rendition of "Everybody was Kung Fu fightin'...", and he'll be doing all kinds of exaggerated Kung Fu Panda moves to match. Charlie and Wally think it's great fun, of course, and they're showing it through the oldest, most genuine, and most effective form of flattery - imitation. The best example of that is how Wally, who'll be turning three in the summer and is still disturbingly attached to his pacifier, will pull it out of his mouth to sing along the three words "kung fu fightin" every time they come up in the song. All this means my ears don't get a respite at all from the minute I get home from work until I've finally managed to put them to bed. Not to mention, bedtime becomes an extremely rubber concept when you're all winded up from being Kung Fu Panda and still ready to bounce off the walls.

And then, there's the first time Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove thought it'd be a good idea for both our families to hang out at their place on a Saturday afternoon, just so we could all get to know each other better. Hetty and Lulu were more than happy to find an excuse to escape that party when a bunch of their high school friends came by honking, and - I can't believe this - _Fred_ actually hopped on their bandwagon to go to the mall.

"Got room for an ol' fart like me?" he'd said, and next thing we knew, he'd shot out the door and bolted off just like our resident high school seniors.

Neanderthal or not, Fred's still got my entire family wrapped around his little finger, even though his interactions with us are limited to basically three categories of activities: firstly, keeping the kids highly amused and entertained with his ridiculous antics; secondly, doing pretend auto racing, whether miniature or virtual, with Charles; and thirdly, any en-famille gatherings that Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove plan, though if Hetty and Lulu find a way to ditch these, he lets them drag him along with them, and I mean actually, physically dragging him by the hand. Not that they don't do that other times as well; Lulu's been hanging onto him like a barnacle, and he isn't protesting about that at all. It seems like Fred isn't above doing anything to get an ego boost, because the kids and the twins positively worship the ground he walks on, and he's been lapping up the attention for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Even Hetty, who's been attached for the longest time, is hanging around Fred enough to make her squeeze, Chuck Hayter, a little nervous.

Seriously, karting? For your information, we've all passed the big 3-0 like, four years ago, and we've lived more than half our lives by now with real driving licenses of our own. So I wonder how on earth zipping around in pretend cars on a pretend racetrack can possibly hold any appeal to one guy who's got his own roadster and another one who used to fly a fighter jet, unless they're both massively bored. And if that's the case, I'm not terribly surprised, actually. Charles has been short of outlets to take a break from Mary's company for quite some time now that most of our old school buddies are married with kids; and I'll bet the pretend racing is the closest thing to adrenaline-driven excitement Fred's been getting since he left the Air Force. I kind of pity Fred for that, actually.

What I _don't_ pity Fred about, though, is that no matter how bored and attention-hungry he is, stooping to the level of fishing for popularity from high school kids is just too much, in my opinion. Because the Fred I'm familiar with is capable of maturity, and I've got the images of the ambitious young soon-to-be-minted officer who spoke of his passion for flying on commencement day, the aerobatics pilot who performed daredevil maneuvers with perfect accuracy and discipline, and the outdoorsy-yet-sophisticated looking yuppie "dad" I saw picking up Tiffany from preschool (it was only when Tiffany started coming over after school that I found out he's actually her uncle), to show me the man he has become. But while the weekday Fred, silly antics aside, is still the perfect picture of a pilot in his neatly pressed clothes, on the weekends he'll come slouching around in layered T-shirts, hoodies and baggy jeans, with a baseball cap worn backwards. He knows exactly which underground streetwear labels will impress Hetty and Lulu's crowd; and his sense of hip-hop style, combined with the purchasing power to match, makes their guy friends more than a little bit wary and jealous.

Things boil over to the point that Chuck Hayter asks him, "Are you Louisa's sugar daddy?" one day, and I'm the one cringing on Fred's behalf. I hope this reminds him that he ought to be way beyond this; he's almost twice their age, for heaven's sake.

Well, even if Fred's maturity has gone all the way down the drain, his skill as a master tactician hasn't. Because he's a champion at doing all sorts of antics that make me tut in disapproval like someone's granny, so that I feel like a geriatric party pooper while he's charming the socks off everyone else - including the truly geriatric members of this household. It's strangely subtle in all its non-subtlety, because I'm the only one who hears the message loud and clear: Fred just plain wishes I could buzz off. I wish I could, too.

* * *

><p>"What do you want to major in when you go to college?" I remember how it feels like to be pelted with this question in the lead-up to high school graduation, and I certainly don't envy Hetty and Lulu when Sophie asks them this over dinner, because I wouldn't want to go back to this stage of life myself.<p>

"Maybe English," says Hetty. "But maybe not, if I've got to end up teaching high school after that." She rolls her eyes in a little pantomime of horror.

"I don't know," acknowledges Lulu. "I want a job where I can wear jeans to work, and where I can knock off in time to come home and watch _Glee_ and _Gossip Girl_. But not if it means working in Silicon Valley, because compsci is _so_ boring. And I don't think I can stand it if all my co-workers are geeks. I've _got_ to have someone hot to look at once in a while, don't I?" Needless to say, she's turning moony eyes on Fred to make sure we all know who she's talking about when she says this.

"Well, looks like somebody sure knows what she wants," says Fred; he looks perfectly non-committal, but I think I can detect the tiny edge of sarcasm in his tone.

"Yup, I certainly do. _We're_ Gen Y," says Lulu, deliberately linking her arm with Fred's. "Which means we know exactly what we want, and we won't settle for anything less. We're not like older people who do things because they _have_ to; we've got the freedom to do only the things we _want_ to do." She looks directly at me when she says this.

Fred says nothing, and Lulu takes his silence for acceptance; from this time, the implicit divide of Gen X vs. Gen Y is drawn, and it seeps into every little dynamic of our weekend interactions. I can't help feeling a little betrayed by Fred's apparent defection because the Fred I knew was a poster boy for Gen X from head to toe - he had a grungy appreciation of rock and metal, a decidedly independent outlook on life, an ability to see the potential for our generation to make a bigger difference to the world beyond ourselves, the resilience to cope with change, and an unobtrusively pragmatic attitude towards work that's driven by the desire to achieve. And from the way Fred's going about his transition to commercial aviation and playing dad to Tiffany, I don't see him as having lost his Gen X values either. But who am I to say anything? Gen X is the forgotten generation, after all. Fred may have - or pretended to have - changed, but that fact about Gen X is one thing that'll always remain the same, at least as long as Gen Y is around.

* * *

><p>In these days of MP3 technology, there's technically no need for a high school house party to have a DJ, but it's just one of those things I always do for Hetty and Lulu anyway. It started way back when they were little kids, and Charles and I would put on different CDs for them to dance to in the house during the holidays. Now, they still love it when there's someone to DJ for them because they and their friends can yell out song requests on the fly, plus I can also sneak in little surprises here and there. That's the joy of being a spin doctor: you create the atmosphere, and you dictate the pace of the evening. When I'm the DJ, I'm directly responsible for orchestrating all the fun they're having, and that's a good feeling.<p>

Everything starts when Lulu figures out she can't bring Fred to senior prom; that was a no-brainer all along, but it still took quite a while for it to sink in for her. There's this boy in her year called Brett who's been dropping hints to her all semester, only for her to keep dissing him summarily because no high-school prom date can quite measure up to our dear Fred, who's apparently set a whole new standard for both the words "hot" and "cool" at the same time. I must say, though, it's hardly a fair competition because when he was in high school, Fred had never fought in wars or flown a fighter jet either. Ever since Fred appeared on the scene, I've listened to enough monologues about the inferiority of high school boys to fill up a dozen cassette tapes, probably. Except I'd never want to tape those conversations down because playing them back would really be like putting me through a special kind of purgatory, worse than Chinese torture.

The only thing that saves Lulu from going to the prom stag, or whatever the girl version of "stag" might be, is the kindness of Chuck Hayter. Just when the situation was looking quite hopeless, he managed to get a friend from his band, a junior, to fill in as Lulu's date. Instead of feeling appropriately grateful, though, Lulu's been bellyaching all afternoon about the immaturity of younger boys; I'm actually glad when her date arrives and squires her out the door.

Post-prom, the party is the only thing Hetty and Lulu ever think about, night and day. They've got it in their heads that if only they can have a do-over of prom night at home, so Fred can be in the picture too, that'd be a perfect way to mark their high school graduation. Charles is quite happy to loan his half of the duplex for the event, and cover the cost of catering in a fancy spread as well. Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove protest mildly at the expense of it all, but Charles is determined to make this a memorable occasion for his sisters.

"It's not every day my kid sisters graduate high school," he says. "So take it that I'm giving them a special present to mark the occasion, and I want them to remember it as the best graduation ever."

In the run-up to the party, Fred finds the girls talking about the dance music they want to play at the party, and they end up doing some kind of mini music cultural exchange. Every time Fred pops by to pick up Tiffany, I always hear some snatches of our old '80s and '90s rock songs playing from the living room hi-fi before he goes off. So it's no surprise when Hetty and Lulu inform me of the theme for their graduation house party.

"The '80s are _the_ days of disco dance music," pronounces Hetty, as if she's an authority on the subject. "So the theme of our party's gonna be '80's Night'."

"Anne, you'll DJ for us, won't you?" chips in Lulu. "You know all the retro songs, so you'll be perfect for this one. You're like, an _expert_ on the '80s."

Regardless of whether they really meant to or not, they've managed to make me feel positively ancient all over again. But this is a task I might actually enjoy, if not for the fact that I'll be staring at Fred and Lulu in the face all night long; it'll give me a chance to showcase all the songs I grew up with. And I've got an idea: I'll use a laptop and projector to flash my favorite MTVs onto the wall for everybody to see, whenever I can find the MVs I want off Youtube, at least.

I open the evening with DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince's _Boom Shake the Room_. Strictly speaking, it's not a '80s song per se, but I want to have something loud and lively to get everyone in the mood. In his younger days, I know Fred had some mean popping and locking moves, but I'd expect him to be rusty; after all, that was all half a lifetime ago. Well, Peter Pan needs to take some lessons from Fred, because the Fred who's here tonight actually blends in seamlessly with all the high school kids; he's decked out in streetwear with serious cred, and even though the moves he's doing are relatively simple compared to the stuff he used to do at the one or two frat parties we went to together, his attitude more than covers for what he's lost in technique. By the end of the song, he's got all the kids practically eating out of his hand. We were born in the same year, but in the eyes of those kids, I'm Geriatric Gen X, and _he's_ the dude with 'tude. How fair is that?

Halfway through the evening, I put on _Summer Rain_ by Belinda Carlisle. I didn't go clubbing all that often in my younger years, but on the rare occasions when I did go, this is the song I absolutely _had_ to dance to. So playing this track is almost like a reflex action to me; I can't imagine going to any '80s disco party without grooving to _Summer Rain_. It's always been my happy song; only this time, I realize all the upbeat vibes I used to get from it are seriously deceptive. Never before was I remotely conscious that this is actually a very sad song at heart, and that it could jolly well be singing about my own life; but at this moment of reckoning, it becomes starkly obvious to me. Because I'm the girl in the song, who saw her sweetheart off into the military and never heard from him again after that. Unlike the song, Fred did come back, physically at least; but from the way he and Lulu are cavorting around on the dance floor, I guess it's obvious that emotionally, he's as lost to me as if he never came back at all. And yet, this girl in the song, who's dancing alone but imagining she's with her guy, she could be me right now. Only I'm not even doing any actual moves; if there's any dancing involving me, it's all going on in my mind.

As the song fades away, Lulu snaps her fingers and starts belting out the chorus one more time at the top of her voice, with Hetty's voice and those of the other girls joining hers in quick succession:

"Oh my love it's you that I dream o-of

Oh my love, since tha-at day

Some-where in my-y heart I'm al-wa-ays

Dancing with you in the SUM-MER RAIN!

Doe-sn't mat-ter what I do no-ow

Doe-sn't mat-ter what I-I-I say

Some-where in my-y heart I'm al-wa-ays

Dancing with you in the SUM-MER RAIN!"

Good grief. I should've remembered they had a remix of the song in '04, which is why these girls actually know the lyrics. In their voices, the song sounds campy rather than sad or wistful, and they end off with a wild whoop, cheerleader-style, before they land in a giggling heap. Now that they're done, they've fully succeeded in spoiling this song for me forever; for I don't think I can ever listen to _Summer Rain_ again without the images of Fred and Lulu grooving practically hip to hip, surrounded by a whole bunch of raucous high school kids, playing like a sick MTV in my head.

By the time everybody loses steam, it's about 3 a.m. already. Mary and the kids are hanging out at Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove's half of the duplex to escape the noise, and I'll bet there's no point bringing them back now; they've probably crashed for the night long ago. I ask, not too loudly, if anyone's got final song requests; my hope is that there'll be none, and then I can close shop and go. Kids are everywhere – sprawling around either asleep or halfway there, with some couples making out at whatever private nooks and crannies they can find – but no one's really paying any attention to me. Luckily nobody's drunk, though, because we've put our foot down strictly on the no-underage-drinking policy. Enforcing that has been pretty uphill for us, especially with the insistent lobbying from Hetty and Lulu, and we couldn't possibly have done it if Fred hadn't weighed in and tipped the balance in our favor. Charles, bless his heart, is such a nice guy that if he'd been left to his own devices, Lulu would've run roughshod over him without any difficulty at all. I never thought Fred would be the one I'd end up having to thank for this; it's the first time I've ever seen him _not_ humoring Lulu. But anyway, I do. Silently, that is.

It looks like I've got the all-clear to pack the laptop and speakers, until Fred speaks.

"One last song, please. I want _November Rain_."

Great. Wonderful. This song goes all the way back, even beyond the start of our history; as teenagers, Fred and I listened to vastly different stuff for the most part, but Guns N' Roses was one of the handful of bands we had in common right out of high school. And if there's one thing about rock Fred and I had total consensus on in freshman year, it was that _November Rain_ is _the_ song and _the_ MTV of the '90s. Nobody gets up to dance when I play the song, simply because everyone's totally zonked out and also because this song isn't exactly conducive to dancing; it's almost 10 solid minutes of pure, unbridled angst. Plus the fact that, even if I suspend judgment on whether there's deliberate malice intended on Fred's part, the images of the MTV are directly mocking at me; or rather, my failure to actually make it to the altar with Fred.

With all the favorite songs of my youth turning traitor on me tonight, I'm not sure I can revisit any piece of nostalgia from my younger years without it seeming tainted in some way or other. Somehow, Fred coming back has done that to me. One thing's for sure: wild horses couldn't make me do another '80s party again after this, not for anyone at all.

* * *

><p><em>Disclaimer: "Summer Rain" belongs to Belinda Carlisle.<em>

_Chapter Afternote: The linkages to canon, especially in the DJ sequence which maps directly to Anne's piano-playing in canon, are all deliberate. And Anne's disapproval of Frederick's behavior also has a basis in canon - "Anne longed for the power of representing to them all what they were about, and of pointing out some of the evils they were exposing themselves to." (Chapter X) _


	5. Underneath The Same Big Sky

**Chapter 5 – Underneath the Same Big Sky**

_June 2012_

_Frederick_

This holiday's supposed to be my "End of Freedom" party to mark my last weekend of not-officially-working life before I start flying for Delta, and it seemed like a no-brainer to go back to Lake Huron. It's where we used to go for short weekend holidays in the spring and summer whenever Mom was well enough, and it's full of memories for Sophia, Ed and me. It's where I used to cannonball into the water even in April or May, the only thing giving me the same kind of thrill as getting air on my skateboard or my BMX back when I was that age.

But this time it's different, because the Musgroves aren't really cut out for the outdoors at all – they've brought in enough suitcases full of clothes and toys, appliances and gadgets, tidbits, and cans of soda to last for more than a week, even though we'll be here for less than three full days. In the daytime, it gets warm enough for the twins to strip down to tiny denim miniskirts, tank tops and flip-flops, showing off the fancy new manicures and pedicures they just got. I just hope I won't be a spectator to the eventual drama, because if you ask me, the probability that they'll ruin those nails before the weekend is up is one hundred percent.

"Ooooh! Kayaking! Isn't that fun?" Louisa is looking dreamily at a few couples who're paddling on the lake, and from the way she's hanging onto my bicep, I think I know just what she's thinking about; except the reality of kayaking isn't that way. For starters, there's the pong of manure in the boathouse, which sends the Musgrove twins scurrying out the next second.

"Ewww… it _stinks_, and I'm _so_ not getting in there. Charles, my darling brother, I know you'll be sweet enough to go in and get the kayaks with Fred-_die_, won'tcha?"

Great, just great – Charles groans audibly as he lifts up his end of the tandem kayak, carrying it off the rack and down the slope to set it in the water, and Chuck Hayter steps in help him while I balance them off on the other end. And then we have to repeat the process again, and again. It's no fun at all, when these kayaks are built like tanks.

Besides, Charles and I have to convince the twins to change into running shorts, or some kind of other shorts they can get wet in, and to put on shoes or sandals that'll actually stay on, before we can let them get into the kayaks. The balking we get from them for this is already bad enough, but it gets ten times worse when they carry on about the smell and the tan lines they'll get when it's time to put on their life jackets. All of it's enough to send my mind drifting back into another kayaking trip, in another time and another age, with another girl. That was the last time I'd been here before now, and I've got much better memories of that outing, probably because I wasn't subjected to motor-mouthed complaining about a wide enough variety of topics to fill up an encyclopedia; and this is only day one.

In contrast, that other girl on that long-ago trip was the real article; I was the one who'd introduced her to the outdoors, but once initiated, her love for nature was unadulterated and genuine. She didn't have to be told to grasp, instinctively, the three basic tenets I live by to stay safe and preserve the integrity of my surroundings: know your limitations, respect your equipment, and leave no trace. That girl would never come out here with miniskirts, bikinis, manicures or flimsy flip-flops; in her Tevas and hiking shorts, she was always ready for sand, mud or water, and we'd had loads of fun no matter how wet or filthy we got. And we'd always made sure the place we left behind was the same or better off than how we'd found it, unlike the twins and Charlie who need to be reminded to pick up after themselves every time they drop a candy wrapper, soda can or Kleenex on the ground.

The summer before senior year, I made a detour to Michigan while driving back to MIT from Texas, and asked her to start her drive from Grosse Pointe back to Cambridge a day earlier than usual.

"I'll show you a gem in your own backyard," I'd told her. And after we'd come here, she'd agreed with me that this place is a gem indeed.

That girl is now right before me, and at this moment in her Tevas and hiking shorts, she's just the same as I remember her from all those years ago. Physically, she looks less like a phantom already; it's amazing what some sun and a little bit of happiness can do to perk somebody up in an instant. And it's getting easier to believe that the long-ago girl in my memory, the one I loved, is the same girl I'm seeing in front of me, when it's obvious she still likes dipping her toes in the water; and from the way she's savoring it, I'll bet she hasn't had a chance to do this sort of thing since that last time we came here, so many years ago.

"I wonder if I should take a single kayak," she muses. "Or maybe I should hang around here, with the kids? I'm sure Sophie could use some company."

"Actually, you can share with me," Charles says. "Mary won't go in because she says the water's too cold, so she can help watch the kids for a change. Besides, I've rented the double already. Take it as a favor to an old friend, won't you?"

"Yeah, why not?" I find myself saying. "You'll have fun, and you're a shark in a kayak." She's lethal in a single kayak, because she's light and nimble. I should know, after we'd devised our own version of kayak water polo on this very lake.

Everybody's staring at me now; to them, the idea of Anne being a shark in any context is just way out. I feel a little indignant that I've always known a side of Anne that's there, but which her family just can't or won't see; until I remember to register some kind of panic because with that one line, I've let slip that my dealings with Anne in college definitely went beyond what you'd usually expect from a frat boy who won't touch a goody-two-shoes girl like Anne with a ten-foot pole.

Anne just smiles. "It's true," she says. "And I'm gonna show you. Anyone on for a race?" She clambers into the front of the kayak she's sharing with Charles, and then beckons the twins with a challenging look and a come-hither gesture. She's always been good at defusing tricky situations, and this time is no different; she's just saved me from having to explain.

So that's how we end up on the water – me with Louisa, Chuck Hayter with Henrietta, and Charles with Anne. Maybe it's a good thing these tandem kayaks are built like tanks, after all. They're virtually uncapsizable, so I won't have to worry about the possibility of us turning turtle and my having to rescue Louisa. Somehow, I know she won't take it the same way as Anne did when I provoked her into overturning in her single. "End of Freedom" couldn't be a more apt name for this occasion, because it's only day one, and it's already the end of my freedom from thoughts of Anne Elliot. And this time, the fault's all mine for having dreamed up this stupid scheme in the first place.

* * *

><p><em>Anne<em>

"Hey, Anne," Charles nudges me from behind. "Wanna try bumping them? They're so caught up with each other that they won't know what hit them."

"For heaven's sake, that's so childish. We're not in high school anymore." Unlike what everyone's thinking, I _do_ have a definition of the word "fun" in my vocabulary. It just doesn't have to include being a third wheel to Fred and Lulu, but nobody ever gets it because nobody knows. That's a good thing, actually; they're _not _supposed to know, ever.

"Oh, come on. We're on holiday, after all. And nowadays 30 is the new 20, you know? You shouldn't be acting like an old lady before your time. It's high time you had a little fun – especially you, you haven't given yourself a chance to really enjoy life ever since you came out of college."

"OK." I sigh. I'm sick of everyone telling me I'm a stick-in-the-mud schoolmarm, and Charles is just about the last Gen-X-or-younger person around who hasn't started the "you're-such-a-party-pooper" spiel, until now. "Let's approach them from behind, then when they turn a little we'll run into them at full speed. Then they _really_ won't know what hit them."

Charles and I are lurking around, waiting for our moment to strike. I know how to be still, silent and invisible, because I've been that way all my life; and anyway, they seem so wrapped up in each other, they probably wouldn't be any the wiser if a grizzly cannonballed into the water and pounced on them at that moment. From where we are, we can just hear Lulu and Fred's conversation, and I guess our ears are sharper when we hear our names being mentioned.

"Sometimes, I really wish Charles married Anne instead of Mary," Lulu is saying. "Mary complains all the time and she's always finding excuses to bump the kids off to us when we're around, but Anne is so much more of a sport."

"You mean – was there ever a chance of that happening?" It looks like there's some major moment of truth coming up for Fred, and I'm not sure if I want to be in on this, but I listen anyway, just to find out whether this truth will support or contradict the warped version of me I think Fred has in his head.

"I'd like to think there was. Mom used to tell me and Hetty all kinds of cute little stories about how close Charles and Anne were when they were kids, stuff like how they were so sweet acting out _An American Tail_ together when they were in elementary school or something.

"And one day when me and Hetty were really little – four or five, I think – we were hiding under the porch when we heard Anne telling Charles she had a boyfriend. After that, Charles was really sad for weeks, and Mom said it was because he asked Anne to go out with him and she said no. The funny thing is, we never knew who the boyfriend was, or even if there really was a boyfriend. For all I know, Anne might be faking. I've never seen her going on dates with anyone, _ever_.

"But then, maybe there could've been somebody when she was working on the West Coast, way long ago. When she came home, she brought this really clunky old car to Charles, and asked him to keep it in our garage. That car was so _gross_, with rust everywhere – I say, it's only fit for the junkyard. But all the way till now, Anne just won't junk it, no matter what we say. It's just sitting there, and sometimes Anne comes over to polish it – God knows why she even bothers. And don't ever try asking Anne anything about it. She'll kill you."

"What kind of car is it?" I swear I can hear some modicum of emotion in Fred's voice, but then maybe I'm just imagining things. Hearing what I want to hear.

"It's a Pontiac. '85 or '86, Charles says it is. Brown. Ugly as they come."

"Let's go." I don't want to listen any more, and maybe that's what makes me so strong all of a sudden. I stick my right paddle into the water and swing out in an arc, spinning us nearly a hundred and eighty degrees with a single stroke. Charles seems to have the same idea too, for he's adding his strokes to mine as we beat the quickest retreat we possibly can.

* * *

><p>Hetty and Lulu's obsession with all things Harry Potter is just one of those things that hasn't changed in the past 10 years, and which probably won't change in the next 10 years at least. So we end up playing Muggle Quidditch, though I suspect more than fifty percent of the motivation behind that is just to create one more excuse for Fred and Lulu to prance around each other as if they're in a Bollywood movie. The other reason, I suppose, is for Hetty to impress Fred with her Girl Scout skills by square-lashing the kids' hula hoops onto posts for the goals, seemingly oblivious to how Chuck is seething right under her nose. Before this long-awaited game, the excitement's been building up to the point that even though Wally's still too young to understand the rules, he's added the word "Quid-it" to his vocabulary already<p>

We don't have enough players to have a full-size game, so we've come up with our own reduced version with two Chasers, one Seeker, one Bludger and one Keeper per team. It's the Gen X vs. Gen Y divide all over again, except this time, Team Gen Y has to borrow someone to undertake the boring, thankless task (in their words, of course) of being a Keeper for them, and Mr. Musgrove graciously steps in. Hah – so much for flaunting their youth and exuberance, the average age of Team Gen X is probably lower in the end. Getting someone to be the Snitch is easy enough, since everyone agrees Charlie looks every bit the part. He's certainly the _roundest_ person around, if there's any.

"Anne_ has_ to be our Seeker," says Mary. "She's got the most experience chasing Charlie around the house." Thanks a lot, Mary. You're the one who roped me in as an ad-hoc au pair.

Team Gen X winds up with Charles gallantly offering to be the Keeper and Mary being the Bludger because she doesn't want bruises from dodging flying tennis balls, which leaves Sophie and Tiffany to be our Chasers. It's all for the best, because I think they'll be great as a mother-daughter team.

And Team Gen Y is rooting for Fred to be their Seeker, because they all think he's the living, breathing version of Cedric Diggory, only tougher, buffer and much hotter because of that. Except for Lulu, who's been having other ideas all along.

"Fred-_die_, you've just _got_ to be a Chaser with me. We're the perfect A team, aren't we? Gimme a five!"

And so in the end, Chuck steps up to volunteer as their Seeker; he figures he's got more speed than Hetty – or me, for that matter.

Giving Charlie a free run of the entire park is definitely _not_ a good idea. He weaves around other people's footballs, shimmies up into trees, and has absolutely no concept of the rules of right of way when he dashes across footpaths and bike paths. In fact, he's running right smack across the trajectory of an oncoming cyclist on a road bike going practically as fast as a car, when I catch up with him just in time to lunge forward and push him to the safety of the grass verge on the other side of the asphalt path. But such heroic life-saving measures are totally dumb for anyone who's straddling an improvised broomstick, and naturally, I trip on my stick and land sprawling.

Just when I think I'm going to end up being an impromptu speed bump on the road, someone pulls me up by the scruff of my neck and drags me backwards onto the grass. It's Fred, and he's had the sense to ditch his stick before running after me, at least. I shouldn't be surprised that he can move so fast – after all, he's got to have lightning-quick reflexes after more than a decade of flying fighter planes. But what I just can't figure out is how he knew how to come after me. To get here in time, he'd have to be paying some level of attention to what I was doing all this while, and there's absolutely no reason for him to do so when his role is to focus on Lulu and the goal, not to look at the Snitch - or at me.

"Thank you," I say rather feebly, but by the time I've turned around to say it, he's slunk off somewhere and is nowhere in sight. The numbness is wearing off and I'm starting to feel the sting; belatedly, I realize I've scraped up my palms and knees with road rash from my spill on the asphalt.

"Come _back_! The game isn't over yet," Lulu protests with a petulant stamp of her foot. "Anne let go of the Snitch, so it doesn't count."

A shadow sneaks up behind me, putting a bundle of something softly on the ground. It's a Nalgene full of water – Fred's – and the first-aid pack with gauze and antiseptic. Before I know it, though, he's slunk away again. He moves just like a cat, does Fred.

"Well, I've got the Snitch, so it's Game Over anyway. Ha!" Chuck lifts Charlie by the armpits and dangles him up in the air as if he's the Wimbledon trophy. "What's the score?"

"3-2 to Team B – if you count the winner Tiffany just shot in," says Mrs. Musgrove, and the Gen Y-ers stomp off in a huff. It looks like we do have the last laugh, after all.

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

In the end, it's Anne who finally succeeds where Sophia and I have failed miserably, in getting Tiffany to stop singing that underpants song once and for all.

"Ten-shi no pant-su wa… Aunty Annie, aren't you going to sing with us? It's really easy."

"Tiffany, don't you think it isn't very nice to sing about underpants? I'll teach you and Charlie another song, something more grown up. I used to sing this song when I was in second grade, so both of you'll be way smarter than me if you learn it before you're even in kindergarten. It goes like this: Somewhere out there, beneath a pale moonlight…"

That's the song from _An American Tail_, I'll bet. The one Louisa said Anne and Charles used to sing when they were little. In fact, I guess I do sort of remember the movie, or at least I remember that Sophia took Ed and me to watch it when I was in the second or third grade. Back then, I never cared much for those types of movies, though – sentimental stuff like that's for girls. So I must be getting soft in my old age, because the song is really starting to get to me.

"_And even though I know how very far apart we are_

_It helps to think we might be wishing on the same bright star_

_And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby_

_It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky_"

Man, Anne would really make a good mom to someone, someday. She never really had much occasion to sing back when we were in college, but somehow I knew she'd have an amazing singing voice. And Tiffany and Charlie are just like what I'd think Anne and Charles were like as kids. They could've been Anne's kids; they could've been Anne's and my kids, if things had turned out differently nearly eleven years ago. Or maybe not quite – any sons of _mine_ have to be way tougher than Charlie and Wally are; I'd make sure of that. I'll make sure they're off shredding downhill on their mountain bikes before they fall completely victim to the Xbox, the iPad and the Wii, at least.

Anne and Charles – it really gets to me how close I could've been to the truth, the times I thought Charles was Anne's husband when I saw him picking up Charlie. The twins were around four or five when he asked her to be his girlfriend, and she said no – which means it was when we were in college, while we were together. That was the time I drove to Texas every summer in my Pontiac to clock up flying hours, working my way to pay for flight school.

Speaking of which, I wonder why Anne still keeps my Pontiac. I would've junked it long ago – in fact if my memory doesn't fail me, I was the one who specifically asked her to junk it for me. But I can't escape the reality that even if there's plenty of hard evidence by now to show she didn't break off with me out of snobbery, she _did_ make a choice not to get back in touch with me after her grandma's passing. True, I wasn't exactly contactable then; but she could at least have set off the chain reaction by asking Tom or James about my whereabouts. Her conscious decision _not_ to come back to me, though, just doesn't gel with the fact that she's apparently still hanging on to my ratty old Pontiac, and after twelve long years to boot. It all makes so little sense that I'd believe you if you told me somebody spiked the drinking water in my Nalgene with a hallucinogen. If I wrote this story into a song, I'm pretty sure it'd pass for psychedelic rock.

_Underneath the same big sky_ – now, _those_ are words that made sense to me, only it was so long ago. Back when I was fighting in Afghanistan, right after 9-11, I didn't know when I was ever going to come home again, if at all. Not that I had an actual _home_ to speak of, but you know, I'd consider coming back to the US, anywhere in the US, as a homecoming of sorts. At that time, I still had hope, still thought Anne was just overreacting from her grandma's illness, that she might come back to me after she came back to her senses and faced up to reality. And the only thought that kept me going when I was thanking God every day to be alive, was that we were living on the same earth, under the same sky.

* * *

><p><em>Disclaimer: "Somewhere Out There" is from the 1986 movie "An American Tail."<em>


	6. Flat Freddy

**Chapter 6 – Flat Freddy**

_July 2012_

_Anne_

All that stuff Lulu said to Fred about my never having a boyfriend in all the years since I came back to Detroit might be true, but I really wish they wouldn't paint me to be such a sorry loser, because I'm not. This is further testimony to the power of appearances – I've established a certain kind of image, and now it's getting to be completely impossible to live it down after it's had a decade or more to calcify.

The first few years of my working life at Northwest were the hardest, because all my co-workers within the 20-something age bracket were going to bars, clubs and parties after work, but I always had to go home to Grandma. So I missed out on an entire stage of life: the time when you've got more disposable income than when you were a teen; you don't have parents or other family breathing down your neck; and at the same time, you're still free enough from adult responsibilities - or should I say, family responsibilities - to be able to enjoy yourself to the max. Those were the times my colleagues would club till 2 a.m., and yet somehow they'd still be able to make it into the office the following morning. Not being a part of all that, it was inevitable that I'd drop out from that web of camaraderie, and start being pigeonholed as a stodgy old do-nothing. That's not a very conducive reputation for getting dates in the office, and so I never got any. But that's where perception and reality diverge, because to everyone else, they think I've never got any taste for fun; they'd probably believe I'd be happiest just sitting at home watching _Days of Our Lives_, or something of that variety.

Nobody knows - or more accurately, nobody even cares - about the adventures I have in my head still, the stuff sitting on my old bucket list from college which got relegated to the top shelf in the attic the day the big C came into our lives. That list includes stuff like, of course, the Boston Marathon I never got to do; backpacking through the not-so-mainstream parts of Europe, places like Croatia, for example; hiking Mt. Shasta and Mt. McKinley; going on a mission with Habitat for Humanity or similar; and setting foot at least once on every continent in the world, including Africa and Antarctica, within my lifetime. These are the things I thought I'd have all the time in the world to do, back in that period right after graduation when I expected working life to be a logical continuation of the freedom I tasted in college, in fact only even better because I had full financial and personal independence for the first time in my life. Sure, I was already tied to a future where I'd sooner or later end up having to follow Fred to wherever he was posted; but at that age, I could only see that I'd have two years of freedom to enjoy myself before that happened, and with the ease that we could plan little getaways during our college breaks, I'd had no reason to believe that getting the occasional holiday would be any more difficult in post-college, even post-marriage life; that was exactly how naive I was back then.

I may know better now, but it still doesn't stop me from indulging in flights of fancy; the only difference is that I know they'll always remain in the hypothetical realm. And that's why my years in college are the part of my personal history that I treasure the most; it's the only time I was really free to be the person I want to be, not inhibited by the confines of my family. My relationship with Fred was a natural follow-on from that self-expression; we were that close because he identified with my hunger to prove my worth and capabilities, to see more, and to experience more, since he had a hunger of his own too; and he supported me because he identified with me. I keep telling myself that I should keep an open mindwith regards to relationships, and for the most part I do, except with one caveat: any relationship I get into has to have the same kind of authenticity as I had with Fred. This is the hardest part to achieve, when the sole source of any dates I have is through Father and Liz's set-ups; their manner of soliciting potential mates for me is equivalent to putting up a want ad screaming, "Partner needed to save chronically single Elliot daughter from perpetual spinsterhood!" with the word "Elliot" triple-underlined. Besides, you can't replicate the purity of college life in the real world – in college, we were all equals, and we were constantly being fed with new ideas and actively encouraged to have big dreams; whereas in the world outside, everything's about pragmatism and what kind of edge you can get over others. Excluding the friends I made in school and college, I've found there are broadly two categories of people out there: the ones who associate with us because they still think the name "Elliot" holds enough clout to get them somewhere; and those who can't be bothered because they know that the Elliot name has no real value anymore.

If you put everything together, it basically means my memory of college and Fred is the closest I've gotten to any kind of relationship in the past eleven years, and that situation's likely to continue for the rest of my life. And if you tell me that makes me a pitiful loser, maybe I can't argue with you after all. Because not wanting any excitement in life might be boring, but what's even more pathetic is when you constantly want something, and yet you know you won't ever be able to have it again.

* * *

><p>This summer, the Musgroves are on a vacation of a lifetime that I would've loved: they're spending three weeks in Europe, of which they'll take two weeks to explore the historical ruins in Greece and Italy plus a short beach getaway in Mykonos, followed by a week in London to catch some of the Olympic Games. They've been planning this gig for more than a year already as something special to celebrate the twins' high school graduation.<p>

"Anne, dear, you're more than welcome to join us, you know," Mrs. Musgrove said to me when the subject first came up last year. "And don't worry about the expense – just take it that you're part of the family. After all, we've known you since you were this tall."

"But if Anne comes and nobody's left at home, we'll have to bring the kids," Mary protested. "And how are we gonna manage? Wally still needs his bottles and his afternoon naps, plus with the stuff we're doing, we'll need an army to handle Charlie."

"Surely it can't be that bad," Charles has had to play diplomat too many times in this household, and this was one of the classic instances. "We could work some kid-friendly days into our itinerary. Or I can stay behind with the kids – after all, someone needs to be here to look after the company, right?"

"Don't be silly, Charles," Mary protested. "We're husband and wife, so how could I possibly go on vacation without you? And you know the garages all have their own staff already – they won't collapse just because we're away for three weeks."

"If the kids come, count me out," Hetty chipped in. "It just means we'll end up spending the whole time at Euro Disney, so what's the point of going to Europe if we could do that right here?"

"It's OK, really. I'll stay behind. Thanks a lot for inviting me, though. But I don't think I'll be able to get enough days off from work to make it for the trip, so it'll be no problem at all." It was true anyway, which made my decision pretty easy. That's the kind of flexibility that makes a huge difference between having your own business, as compared to working for someone else.

So that's how I end up being solely in charge of the house and kids for three weeks, and Sophie's presence is an added bonus because it means I don't have to go around calling the families of Charlie's friends from preschool to set up daytime babysitting arrangements. It's a lot to ask of Sophie because I'm sure she's busy too, so I try to fix some off days so she doesn't have to rearrange too many of her business commitments. She's been so sincere about offering her help, though, that I feel a little less bad about the whole thing.

"If you need help, just give us a call," she'd said. "And you're welcome to drop in for dinner with us too. I'll have to cook anyway, and it'll save you some hassle after you knock off from work."

Sophie's a godsend, and it's tough to say no to her invitation; I wouldn't want to, if not for the fact that Fred's in the picture. But I don't know if Fred would exactly welcome me at his dinner table, and this is something I can't quite explain to Sophie. So I just play it by ear, one day at a time.

* * *

><p>"Aunty Annie, say hi to Flat Uncle Freddy," Tiffany says, waving a life-size cardboard cut-out of Fred's head and shoulders mounted on a stick at me when I come round to pick up Wally and Charlie from Sophie's the first day they're there.<p>

From my stooping position, Flat Freddy is practically in my face, and he's true to life. Clad smartly in his Air Force uniform, he's looking me right in the eye with the same cheeky, confident smile I remember so well – he's the same Frederick who launched his cardboard airplane with a swagger, crossed the finish line at the Boston Marathon with his personal best time, and stood on the valedictorian's podium at MIT. This is the Frederick who's a total stranger to me now, because Flat Freddy's expression is far more benign than any his 3D counterpart has directed at _me_, specifically, since his re-entry into my life.

"Hi, Fred," I say weakly. I feel like an absolute idiot, so to cover myself, I give Tiffany an ultra-warm hello and lean around Flat Freddy to give her a half-hug.

Thankfully, Sophie doesn't snicker. She does invite me to dinner, though, and I accept only because she mentions that Fred's doing a long-haul flight and won't be back for three days. That's a relief - the combination of Flat Freddy and live Fred would be just too much for me to handle.

But even though Fred's out of town, I still can't escape from the fact that the dining table I'm sitting at is his, because Tiffany props Flat Freddy up on the chair at Sophie's left, directly across the table from me. Apparently, this is Fred's usual seat, and Tiffany used to do this every day in those times before Fred came back from the Air Force.

"It hasn't been easy making sure Tiffany grows up knowing both her uncles, when we were all living in different parts of the world," Sophie explains. "My other brother, Edward, has settled down in the UK and we Skype him every weekend, but Fred was in Iraq when Tiffany was born. That's when I had Flat Freddy made, so no matter what might happen – she'd still know her Uncle Freddy." Even though Fred's back now, Sophie still gets a little emotional thinking about the possibility that anything could have happened to Fred, and I've got to admit, it gives me the creeps too. The only difference is, Sophie can be open about it but I can't. It's a good thing the kids are around, though, because you can always count on Tiffany to lighten things up.

"I like Uncle Freddy," she says. "He tells the best jokes and stories, and he always makes me laugh. Uncle Freddy is so much fun 'cause he taught me how to ride my bike, and we can slam dunk in the driveway and play Pirates of the Caribbean. I like to be Elizabeth, but Mommy isn't any fun to be Captain Sparrow 'cause she's too girly. Uncle Freddy is louder and faster and so much more fun. "

"You and Fred, you were friends in college, weren't you?" says Sophie partway through dinner.

"Yeah," I admit. I'm not sure whether the "shark in a kayak" remark has actually made its way round to her, since she was watching the kids when we were kayaking, but as far as my former relationship with Fred is concerned, I find it's much easier to lie by omission than by commission – even if I wanted to claim we hardly knew each other, which I don't, I just can't get those words out of my mouth.

"Do you think there's anything different about Fred? I can't put my finger on it, but it just seems like something's not quite right with him."

"Boredom, I suppose," I shrug. "Back in college, he was the type of person who always had to be doing something – he just couldn't sit still. So I dunno – I won't be surprised if he's bored out of his wits by our little lives in sleepy old suburbia."

"Yeah, you're right, I guess. I just hope he comes to his senses before he ends up doing something really silly." Sophie's got enough grace not to name names, but from the pointed look she's giving me, she doesn't have to say it outright for both of us to know it. She's talking about Lulu, of course.

* * *

><p>"Aunty Annie, you can have Flat Uncle Freddy," says Tiffany solemnly. It's after dinner, and I'm trying to hustle Charlie and Wally to pack up and go home, only the way they're dawdling, they'd make a snail look like Usain Bolt. "Charlie said you must be very lonely at night, 'cause at home you don't have anybody to talk to. So Flat Uncle Freddy can keep you comp'ny, and you can talk to him. Uncle Freddy's back, so I don't need him anymore."<p>

Oh, wonderful. This isn't the first time I've been tempted to plaster Charlie's mouth shut with duct tape, but it's definitely the granddaddy of all the other times. When even five-year-olds are discussing the emptiness of your life, you know you've hit rock bottom.

"Thank you so much, Tiffany," I say in a desperate effort to keep whatever shreds there are left of my dignity, if any at all. "It's very kind of you to give me your Flat Uncle Freddy, but really, I can't take such a precious gift from you. What would Uncle Freddy say if he knew? He might not like it that you gave him away to somebody else." What I don't say is that Fred probably won't have very friendly thoughts about her giving Flat Freddy to _me_, of all people.

But Tiffany's not to be deterred by polite niceties. She presses Flat Freddy's stick into my hand, saying, "Oh, I'm sure Uncle Freddy will like it if it makes you happy. He likes making me and Mommy happy, and you're our friend, so I want to make you happy. He'll understand if I tell him you were feeling sad, so I gave you Flat Uncle Freddy to make you feel better."

Seriously, that's probably the last thing Fred wants to hear. I can't tell her that, though, so I figure I'll need to placate Tiffany first, and then find a way to divest myself of Flat Freddy later.

"Thank you, Tiffany. I'll just borrow your Flat Uncle Freddy for a while, and then I'll give him back to you in a few days, OK? It's only the right thing to do 'cause he's rightfully yours."

"Don't worry, just take it," says Sophie. "Tiffany has too many toys as it is, and she probably won't miss it now that Fred's back to spoil her silly."

The minute Sophie's waved the three of us out the front door, I start plotting how I can free myself of Flat Freddy, and it becomes obvious that I'm a lousy strategist.

"Swap you," I tell Charlie. "Give me your backpack. It's heavier." In one fell swoop, I'm undoing months of hard work, it took so long to condition him to carry his own backpack.

"No swap! I want to play with my Wii at home." Charlie winds a protective arm around the pack. It looks like my training's been effective after all, though I'm not sure if the long-term effect of having too many carrots and no stick will necessarily be good for them. Not that I have a choice about it, because they're not my kids, and I can't enforce anything without the backing of their real parents.

"I'll buy you Kung Fu Panda if you do. Just promise me not to tell Mommy." These are the words of a desperado; it's a certainty our entire household will wake to a blood-curdling shriek from Mary one of these days, because Charlie won't be above dangling the figurine in her face on purpose for laughs. And Mary just can't stand Kung Fu Panda, in the same way she can't stand the Teletubbies; she says their eyes give her the creeps.

"OK. You promised. And I still get to play Wii when we get home." Charlie shakes pinkies with me, and hands over his backpack in exchange for Flat Freddy. While I sling it by both straps on my arm and grab the handles of Wally's stroller, he's off running down the sidewalk, dragging Flat Freddy behind him on the ground.

"Hey! Stop," I run after him as fast as I can, but with the added encumbrances of the backpack and stroller, I can't make up enough ground to talk to him without hollering. "Give me Flat Freddy – now." We're still about fifty yards away from home, and I've already gambled all my chips and lost spectacularly. And Wally's beloved pacifier, which has sprung a crack around the rubber part that's been growing steadily for the past few weeks, chooses just this moment to split in two.

"No more binky," says Wally morosely, holding a half of the broken pacifier in each hand. The tears are rolling down his cheeks, but he doesn't wail or whimper. Instead, he just stares reverently at the broken pacifier in an expression of quiet, serious grief.

"It's OK, Wally," I tell him, stooping in front of the stroller. "We can always get a new binky for you."

"I don't want a new binky," Wally protests. "I want this one. Binky's _gone_."

"Char-lie," I yell while stroking Wally's hair to comfort him. "Come back here right now. With Flat Freddy. I'm not leaving Wally to come after you."

Charlie makes an about-turn and marches back rebelliously, dragging Flat Freddy hard on the asphalt all the way. He comes up right behind me, letting go of Flat Freddy's stick so I hear it clattering to the ground. I pick up Flat Freddy, tug gently at the edges to straighten them out where they've been scuffed by the asphalt, and balance him across the canopy of Wally's stroller, taking care to put him in a face-down attitude so his identity's a little less obvious.

It's 8 p.m., but with the sun still out, many of our neighbors are still lounging around on their front porches, and they wave to us as we walk past. I wave back but keep walking, and thankfully, nobody asks me anything. It's a relief when Flat Freddy makes it into my closet without further incident, and I finally hide him behind closed doors. And from the sound of the TV downstairs, I know Charlie hasn't waited for my go-ahead signal to start his Wii time. Not only have I lost every bargaining chip in my pocket, I've also established myself as a toothless tiger, and it's all for the sake of one Flat Freddy. My pathetic little life has reached a brand new low, for sure.

* * *

><p>Strangely enough, Flat Freddy turns out to be a kind of lucky charm for me after all. A few days later, it's one of the times I'm taking a day off work to relieve Sophie, and Fred shows up on my doorstep with Tiffany. That's not new in itself, but what's new is how he's gone friendly on me all of a sudden; he knows I'm the only adult member of the household around, but still he asks if he can come in.<p>

"Sure," I say. I offer to get him a drink, and he declines politely; instead, he asks me to sit with him, and he opens up this folded piece of paper to show me, which has a whole bunch of dates written on it.

"Most of my flights are long-haul, so these are my rest days at home between flights," he explains. "I can take the kids all day on these days, so you don't have to skip work to look after them."

Unexpected as it is, this is exactly what I need; my projects are piling up and even though I'm illicitly using GTalk to communicate with my team members from home, things are definitely moving slower because of my spotty attendance in the office. So I don't have qualms about graciously accepting, especially when for once, Fred seems to be happy rather than grudging about extending me such a kindness.

"Thanks, Fred," I say. "You can't imagine how much I appreciate it – I really need the time in the office, and well, I hope it isn't too much trouble for you."

"Not at all. It isn't fair for you to be the one always having to miss work when they're not even your kids, so it's only right for me to help out on my off days."

Fred ends up sticking around the whole day; he keeps the kids entertained and helps make lunch while I catch up on work with my laptop. Through it all, we're actually able to co-exist on friendly terms, even if we're not exactly intimate. The awkward tango we've been doing for the greater part of a year is over; this truce is real, and for whatever reason, we've finally found a way to behave like adults around each other.

* * *

><p>The Musgroves will be touching down in Detroit tomorrow, and Charlie's badgering me to take the training wheels off his bike so he can welcome them with his newfound cycling skills.<p>

"I can ride a two-wheeler now," he proclaims proudly, "and training wheels are for babies, like Wally over there."

"Who taught you how to ride?" I'm definitely not the one who did it; I generally avoid tasks like these because I don't have the energy or time to deal with the associated histrionics.

"Coach did. I learned on Tiffany's bike, but it's a girl bike with ribbons. I want my own big boy bike, to show Daddy and Mommy."

Soccer's out for the summer; and anyway, I can't figure out how on earth Charlie's soccer coach would have access to Tiffany's bike to teach Charlie with; or for that matter, why he'd bother to do so. But such riddles are for people who've got nothing better to do, and so I let the whole thing slide.

Even after the Musgroves are back, Fred continues to take Charlie and Wally on his off days, and over the next few weeks I see a series of changes in Charlie. He starts refusing his baby bottle, he carries his own backpack without reminding me about Wii time in return, and he keeps telling Wally, zealously if not exactly effectively, to stop sucking his thumb and to pick up his own toys. And Wally has a little triumph of his own, too. He's stopped mourning the sad demise of his binky, and he waves his empty hands proudly at me.

"No more binky," he says cheerfully. "Coach says Wally's a big boy. And big boys don't have binkies."

"Coach says I have to man up," Charlie says when I ask him who's taught him to do all these things. "And I don't want to be a baby anymore, 'cause I'll be going to kindergarten soon."

"Who's Coach?"

"Oh, you know."

"No, I don't. Tell me."

"You _know_. Tiffany's Uncle Freddy. He told me and Wally to call him 'Coach' 'cause we're big boys now."

Whoever said men are simple and women are complicated has got to be a man, because as far as I'm concerned, Frederick Wentworth is the most complex creature in the entire universe. I thought we were on our way to becoming friends, or that we'd at least scrounged up enough maturity to put our past differences behind us. And then he comes and pulls this kind of stunt, putting distance between us again.

It's sad, because I actually liked it when Charlie and Wally used to call him "Uncle Freddy". Somehow, that was more friendly and intimate. But if he wants to act distant and impersonal around me all over again, well, that's his business. I'm past analyzing the antics of Frederick Wentworth if he's going to be schizo like that.

Only, he isn't. He actually continues our friendly truce whenever we meet; even though he's still not letting the boys call him "Uncle Freddy". This is one piece of evidence to the contrary of popular wisdom – actually, it's the men who are complicated, and the women who are easy to understand. You just need to let the women write the story, and we'll set you straight on that one soon enough.

* * *

><p><em>Chapter Afternote: The last line of this chapter is a deliberate wordplay on canon - "You just need to let the women write the story, and we'll set you straight on this one soon enough" is a parody on Harville and Anne's conversation in canon (Chapter XXIII) on the representation of men's and women's constancy in literature.<em>


	7. Hermes vs Vuitton

**Chapter 7 – Hermes vs. Vuitton**

_August 2012_

_Frederick_

Loyalty. That's what Anne Elliot has always been about, all along. It's loyalty that's driving her to devote herself so fully to the welfare of Charlie and Wally, and I'll bet she probably devoted herself to her grandma with the same kind of loyalty before that as well.

I was the subject of her loyalty once before, too. She was so committed to supporting me that she not only taught herself how to cook from scratch to help me save time and money on meals; she even researched into the kinds of nutrition that'd help me optimize my sporting performance. Still, some of her early concoctions were positively awful, like the dried-out vegetables, the lumpy soups, the over-seasoned casseroles, and the steak she somehow managed to blacken on the outside while it was still raw in the center. Yet no matter how terrible it looked or tasted, I'd still faithfully eat whatever she cooked as long as it was technically fit to be eaten; that kind of loyalty she gave me deserved my loyalty in return. And it helped that I never, ever laughed at her cooking or discouraged her from continuing to try, because she'd never have improved without that opportunity for trial and error. The end result was win-win for both of us - by the time we graduated, she was a fabulous cook; and I was happily well-fed throughout my years of college.

Nobody except my own brother and sister has ever given me loyalty like that since then; and that's how I learned to compartmentalize my life - family is there for support, and lady friends are there for fun. As long as I stick to that set of expectations, I'm never disappointed; it's a pragmatic outlook that can be fulfilled by the reality around me. From my experience with Anne, I've learned that it's not reasonable to expect any of my girlfriends to step in and play the role of family to me, because their topmost priority will always be saved for family of their own. In any case, I've never met any other woman since who's got the same capacity for kindness, generosity and diplomacy that Anne has; but then again, I've also never allowed myself to depend as fully on any other woman as I had on Anne.

I'm using the present tense - "has" - because I realize now that at the core, Anne hasn't changed at all from the days when we were in college. She's still willing to put herself right on the line for the people she loves, and one clear example of that is the way she's functioning as the ultimate childcare back-up for the Musgrove family even though her work commitments are equal to, if not heavier than, everyone else's. I mean, I love Tiffany to bits, but I'm not sure if I could give up flying to look after her; and it's all a moot point anyway because Sophia, as the parent, is rightfully my back-up. So when I'm flying, it's very clear what comes first, and nobody can make any other claims on my time. But for Anne, it's a totally different story. Charlie and Wally may not be her kids; but all too often, she's got to step in even if she's running herself ragged, simply because she knows there won't be any back-up if she doesn't.

"Why do you do it?" I asked her recently, because I thought it was just too much for the entire family to up and go on holiday like that, ditching her with the kids, and I couldn't figure out any good reason for her to put up with it. "Charles and Mary are their parents, and they should be acting as your back-up, instead of the other way around. Just like the way it is with Sophia and me."

And yet, surprisingly, she did come up with a reason I couldn't refute. "Because Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove are already looking after Charlie and Wally in the day, every weekday," she said. "So in a way, they're the real back-up, actually. I know there's no point asking Mary to lift a finger, because she just won't, and Charles is trying his best to do what he can. It wouldn't be fair to ask Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove to fill in all the time on top of what they're already doing either, so all I'm doing is to plug the gaps. It just can't be helped."

They might not deserve it, but Anne has made her choice crystal clear - she's devoting every inch of her loyalty to them anyway. And even though it's a let-down - a huge one - that she's transferred her loyalty away from me, it doesn't change the fact that I can still appreciate who she is as a person. And she's a good person; the best I've ever known, with the exception of my own family of course. So I decide to get past my pettiness and give her some loyalty anyway, even if it's a different kind of loyalty; the loyalty of a friend. And through that, I learn how good it feels, when you give of yourself for real. Because you're only really giving when you resolve to do something for somebody, even though you know you're not going to get anything back in return.

* * *

><p>When the Mayans predicted that the end of the world is coming this year, they might actually turn out to be correct after all. Because of all the unexpected things to happen - Anne Elliot, the perfect paragon of female rationality, throws a hissy fit at me for the first time ever; and to top that, it's all because of something that's completely, ridiculously, and childishly trivial.<p>

I never liked being called "Freddie"; everybody knows that. I wouldn't even have let Henrietta and Louisa Musgrove call me by that name if it wasn't that at the time, I somehow thought it was marginally less painful than having them call me "Captain Wentworth". But now that I've started flying as a First Officer and can see myself becoming "Captain" again someday, the title "Captain" isn't the universal irritant it used to be anymore. Instead, every time someone addresses me as "Freddie" or any of its variants, it reminds me of the Musgrove twins, who've taken over the honor of being the greatest irritant in my life at present. Thank goodness that isn't going to last for long, because I'll be seeing less of them when they start college in a matter of weeks. In the meantime I can streamline things a little, and the Musgrove boys are the easiest to wean off from the list of people who are currently calling me "Freddie". With kindergarten starting in the fall, Charlie does have some growing up to do and that's a good excuse to start; while I'm at it, I might as well start Wally young as well. That's how I end up getting them to call me "Coach"; it sounds much better, because it's so much more manly. And things are going along more swimmingly than I first expected, because the new man-to-man lingo is bringing out the little man in Charlie too.

Except one day, Anne pulls me aside saying, "Fred, I need to talk to you." If the vibes had been different, I'd actually enjoy the way she's pulling me by the arm without realizing it, but not when she's got that look on her face; she seems like she's going to have kittens any minute.

"Sure. What's up?" I have no idea what cardinal sin I've committed to deserve this, but it won't help to blow up while trying to find out, so I try to be as neutral as possible.

"Why are you telling Charlie and Wally to call you 'Coach'?"

"Why not? You know I can't stand it when people call me sissy nicknames. Besides, Charlie's growing up, so I thought it's more appropriate - more man to man - if he calls me 'Coach'. It's no big deal, really. What's wrong?"

"I just - oh, forget it. Just forget I ever said anything." She stalks off and busies herself wiping imaginary drool from Wally's mouth, and he whimpers and squirms at having his game interrupted like that.

The only conclusion I can draw from all this is that whatever Mary and the Musgrove twins have got has turned catching all of a sudden, because Anne's been living in an estrogen-laced - no, make that estrogen-turbocharged - household all her life, and yet she's managed to keep her immunity to these random mood swings all the way until now. But if I warn Sophia, who's the last sensible woman left standing in my life, not to fall victim to the estrogen epidemic that's going around, she'll probably tell me I've gone completely nuts. Well, if I am a nut case, it's all because of women anyway - give them something simple and they'll twist and turn it around until you can't make head or tail of it anymore. I'm dead sure the world would be a much easier place to live in if there were only men in it; just that in our heart of hearts, we don't actually want it that way. Life would be a lot less interesting if it were.

* * *

><p><em>Anne<em>

Normally, the only times I ever sit in a hairdresser's chair are when I'm in Florida - the number of times Liz drags me around to get my hair and face done are more than enough to last me the whole year round. But when I'm supposed to go to an ELMSCO board meeting in the place of Father, I've got to do something to look the part if I want any sliver of a chance of being taken seriously.

Of course, I'm under no illusions as to why Father asked me to represent him this time around - it's the meeting where the ELMSCO board will be voting on selling our flagship plant in Saginaw to a Chinese investor, and neither he nor Liz has the stomach to be at the scene when the actual decision is made, so I've got to be there to take the blow on their behalf. Father's already given me specific instructions to convey that he will support the sale; as Father's proxy, I have about as much autonomy as a puppet, and there's no real room for me to have any alternative views of my own, even if I wanted to. But much as I don't wish to acknowledge it either, I have enough understanding of the business to know the writing's on the wall, and there's no way to stop it.

The simple truth is, ELMSCO is the oldest, worst-decaying bit of rust in the Rust Belt; and it doesn't help that generations of Elliots have gotten soft, complacent and ignorant about it. Being an Elliot has always been about tradition, and by tradition, ELMSCO has produced good, trusty mechanical components; it's a formula that hasn't changed since the days of the Model T Ford. Except now, running a good old-fashioned auto parts business just isn't enough to keep us afloat anymore; in the past decade or more as automobiles have been going into drive-by-wire and brake-by-wire, if you don't integrate the mechanical structures with the electronics to form a holistic system, you'll be left scrapping the bottom of the barrel and that's exactly what's happened to ELMSCO. Even though I've been a semi-outsider to the industry, I knew enough to guess that this would happen sooner or later; but it's no use for me to get involved when I simply don't have the weight to fight Father and all the other ELMSCO bigwigs. I know my own strengths too well - I'm a technical person, not a business person; and I haven't got half the leadership heft required to be the change agent that ELMSCO needs.

So you reap what you sow, and in our case, it's this - the plant is seriously outdated, but ELMSCO's already deeply in debt and doesn't have the cash to carry out the upgrades we need to keep up with the times. These days, it's the Chinese who have the money, and it makes sense for us to sell out to them in every way, except for the fact that it's the worst ever insult to the Elliot pride. That's the hardest part for Father and Liz to swallow.

* * *

><p>Much as they want to escape from all of this, there's one task that Father and Liz just can't run away from in their capacity as the owners of ELMSCO - and that's to host the Chinese delegation when they come to tour the plant. And this is something I can't duck out of either, since I'm the only member of the immediate Elliot family with an engineering background; never mind that this is just an easy excuse for them as to why I'm the only Elliot who's got even a rudimentary understanding of the nuts and bolts, even though I've never spent a single day of my life in the company's actual operations.<p>

Even with the temperature pushing 90, they're all in suits and ties; Mr. Liu, the big boss, has a huge entourage of 20 or more people with him. He's probably the same age as Father if not older, but he's got an impossibly young lady by his side who's definitely not his daughter. This lady - her name's Rose, we learn soon enough - is even more expensively dressed than Liz, and there's enough jewelry hanging from her to add a pound to her body weight, I'd guess.

Though Rose speaks impeccable English and I'm half convinced Mr. Liu has to understand, if not speak, at least a little English too, Mr. Liu never utters a single word to us directly throughout the entire visit. Everything he says is channeled through his interpreter Mr. Ye, who's a good-looking Chinese guy somewhere around Liz's and my age. At first, I'm a bit unnerved by his perfectly preppy Ivy-League accent which doesn't sound very natural coming from him; but after a while, it turns out he's actually quite friendly.

By default, Liz ends up being the obligatory buddy to Rose, while Father and Cousin William lead the delegation around the plant, tapping on me to give various explanations every now and then. That doesn't stop me from catching little snippets of Rose's conversation with Liz, though.

"Oh, I've got a car like that at home too," sniffs Rose when Liz tells her about the BMW M3 she's currently driving. "I call it my 'little piggy' in Guangzhou. And then there's my 'little dragon' in Beijing, and my 'little stallion', that's what I drive when I'm in Shanghai." It turns out the "little dragon" and "little stallion" are just her Maserati Quattroporte and her Ferrari 599 GTO respectively; and they're just a token add-on to the Liu family's collection of flagship models from every conceivable luxury make, scattered around their various residences in different cities of China.

"And you absolutely _must_ go to Paris for your shopping," Rose continues. "I go there twice a year to get the latest fashions, because there's no place like Paris to get the best prices for everything - Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Hermes ..." Even though I'm walking up front, I can just about imagine what Liz's face must look like when she hears this, because the oversize Kate Spade handbag she's carrying, in a last-ditch effort to show some American pride and patriotism, still pales very much in comparison to the Hermes Birkin that Rose is flaunting around right in her face.

At the end of our tour, Mr. Liu mutters something in Chinese to Mr. Ye as I call his and Father's chauffeurs to bring the cars over. Out of curiosity, I go up to Mr. Ye after I've hung off my cell phone.

"What was Mr. Liu saying?" I ask in a surreptitious whisper between my clenched teeth. I know full well that I'm not supposed to hear this, and I don't want Father to see that I'm asking.

"Well, I'm not supposed to tell you, so just keep this to yourself. He's quoting an old Chinese saying, actually. 'Rags to riches to rags in three generations.'"

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

We meet the Elliots on Friday evening at the lobby of the MGM Grand Detroit; this place has exactly the kind of decadence that would appeal to the likes of Walter and Elizabeth Elliot, and I wonder idly if they've been hitting the casino while they're at it. It's completely ironic, actually, that they're extending me their hospitality with absolutely no idea that I'm the very same guy whom they'd deemed unworthy for even a fling with Anne back when we were in college.

It was Mary who came by, practically bursting with pride, to invite the three of us to dinner with the Elliot family. "Father is the best host _ever_, and you just absolutely _have_ to come," she said. "If you miss this, you might not get a chance to dine with Father again, because he hardly ever comes back to Detroit these days. And it'll be no trouble having you at all - he'll be _so_ happy to meet our dear friends who've been taking such good care of Charlie and Wally."

I'm a little skeptical about whether Walter's really that happy to meet with us, but when Mary persists in her enthusiasm, it's impossible to turn her down without seeming rude; and that's how we end up here tonight. Anne greets us at the lobby, apologizing for her father and sister who are running late; presumably, they're still taking their own sweet time with preening themselves in front of the mirror before making their grand entrance in front of all their assembled guests. The Anne I see tonight looks different - she's cut her hair into a short, layered style that looks sleek and professional, and she's wearing a black skirt suit that's presumably new, because it actually fits, unlike all her other clothes these days.

Dinner is actually at the Coach Insignia at RenCen – the perfect setting to represent the Elliots' supposed fortune in big auto – but the Elliots have insisted we meet here, probably for all of us to be treated to the sight of Walter and Elizabeth getting into the chauffeured Bentley they've rented for this trip. The Musgroves' Range Rover is packed to the gills, so it looks like Anne's default position will be to sit up front in the Bentley next to the chauffeur, as if she's their peon. This is undoubtedly a much more luxurious ride than my RAV4; but nonetheless, I offer to take her because I figure she'll be happier to travel amongst friends. Still, she surprises me with her courage when she actually agrees to jump ship, claiming to her father and sister, a little facetiously since we're every bit as native to Detroit as the Elliots are, that we'll need her help to give us directions to get there.

Soon enough, it becomes clear that the Elliots aren't really interested in anything about us, except what they need to know to determine our position in the food chain of society. The dinner conversation quickly degenerates into a sleep-inducing lecture, all delivered in the condescending voice of Walter Elliot, on the topic of The Elliots: their flashy Florida lifestyle; the magnificent city view from the corner suite they've gotten at the MGM Grand; how generous they are to all their friends; and how privileged we are to be the recipients of their unique brand of unrivalled hospitality. Especially since we've barely met the threshold of admissibility into their social circle, as Elizabeth Elliot doesn't hesitate to point out.

"An airline pilot? Oh, puh-leeze – it's a total waste for you to be a glorified bus driver like that. After all, who's going to look at you when you're in the cockpit?" she says when I tell her I'm flying with Delta.

Louisa's quick – too quick, in my opinion – in jumping to my defense. "Liz, let's get real, OK? Airline pilots are responsible for _hundreds_ of lives, and Freddie's no more a bus driver than you're driving a dump truck. Besides, Freddie isn't just _any_ ordinary pilot, you know. Dig this – he used to be the lead stunt pilot for the Thunderbirds in the Air Force."

"A stunt pilot, huh?" From the way Elizabeth is giving me the creeps, I can pretty well guess why she's still single despite being infamous for relentless flirting. Judging from the way she's giving me the once-over with her eyes, I'm not surprised if she's been scaring men off left and right. "That's a better use of your _talents_, for sure."

Charlie expresses all our true sentiments when he lets out a gigantic yawn; while stretching his arms, he accidentally knocks over his glass of water which spills onto Wally, setting him off bawling at the top of his voice. This is all too much for Tiffany, who's been trying to sit quietly with only the swinging of her legs under the table to betray how bored and restless she's getting; in a second, she's slipped out of her chair to become a goggle-eyed close-up spectator to Wally's little tantrum, standing on tip-toe and hanging on to the arm of his highchair.

"Excuse me," says Anne, picking up Wally and patting him on the back to calm him down. "I think the kids could use a little break, so I'm taking them downstairs." She puts Wally into his stroller and holds out a hand to Charlie.

I offer to go along, ostensibly to lend a hand with the kids, but mostly because I could use a break myself, too. After stopping by the bathroom, where I try to dry off Wally as much as I can, we head down to the Wintergarden for the kids to work off some of their pent-up energy.

"You look better like this," I tell Anne. "Fresher. More youthful."

"Really?" Anne laughs ruefully. "I'm not sure if looking youthful is a good thing, when what I really want is to be taken more seriously. Like last night – we've been entertaining some, um, associates from China these two days, and you can't imagine how out of place I felt when we took them drinking. I wasn't the only lady in the party, Liz and a Chinese lady were there too – but I was the only one dressed like this, which makes me like a complete fish out of water in those kinds of places." It doesn't take much imagination to picture the kind of place they were in, or why Elizabeth would fit right in where Anne wouldn't; just based on what Elizabeth is wearing tonight, I know she's definitely capable of looking like a call girl, albeit a very expensively dressed one.

Anne continues, "They were all having a lark trying to get me drunk – the 'little sister', they called me – but I got out by pretending I was sick after two drinks, so they left me alone for the rest of the night. Someone's got to stay sober anyway, because you can't count on Father and Liz for that."

This is no surprise to me either, when it looks like it won't be just the food bill that'll kill them tonight; the wine alone is probably going to cost them a pretty penny. They'd insisted on pouring me a glass of the restaurant's most expensive Merlot even after I declined to drink on the pretext of driving, and Louisa, who was sitting next to me at the table, helped herself to my glass and happily sipped away until her parents noticed and gave her the look. It also explains why Anne hasn't gone near the wine at all tonight – she's never been much of a drinker all along, so after a night like that I'd imagine the very thought of alcohol would be even more distasteful to her.

Anne glances at her watch. "I guess we've been down here long enough," she says, rounding up the kids. "Time for dessert, everybody! We've gotta go back upstairs if you want your ice cream."

When we get back to the restaurant, we're greeted by Elizabeth's voice right away.

"Anne! We've _got_ to go shopping tomorrow, so I can get that Hermes bag, you know, the one Rose Liu was talking about. And you've got to come along, to show us all the new places coming up, since I haven't been shopping in Detroit for _years_. I hope the shopping scene here is better these days – back in Palm Beach, we've got all the best stores and labels right at our fingertips, and I totally can't imagine how we ever managed to survive when we were growing up here and there was absolutely nothing to see."

"Liz, there aren't any Hermes stores in Detroit. Can't you get it when you go back to Palm Beach?"

"Let's go to the Somerset Mall tomorrow, then. We'll still need something to do, before I die of boredom in this awful city. Mary, you're more than welcome to come along, and Charlie can bring his little friend along with us."

Sophia and I offer Anne a ride home with us at the end of the evening; while the Elliots swagger out the door, I see her discreetly slipping off to talk to the maitre d', cradling her cell phone on her shoulder at the same time. A few minutes later, she joins the rest of us waiting for the elevator, and she gets off at the ground floor together with Walter and Elizabeth. I surmise that she's probably got to see them to their chauffeured car before she can leave, so we offer to wait for her a little ways away. But even after the Elliots are safely ensconced in their vehicle, Anne's job still isn't done yet; she asks us to wait a few more minutes for her while she goes off to settle something for her father. And then she gets back into that elevator, and I know she's going upstairs again.

She doesn't have to say so for me to be absolutely clear as to what this little errand is all about – Walter won't pay for his "hospitality" to us, and she's gone up there to pick up the tab for the evening. It's no wonder that when she comes back down again, she's too embarrassed to look me in the eye. With Anne being as insightful as she is, I'm dead sure she knows I've guessed the situation, and I'll never say a single word about it to her.

* * *

><p>Tiffany needs a watchdog for the Saturday shopping excursion; even though Charles and Mary offer to watch over her for us, I don't trust her not to wheedle candy or toys out of the Musgroves – or Anne – if she's left to her own devices. Since it's one of the rare times when my off days actually coincide with the weekend, the duty naturally falls to me to accompany Tiffany to Troy.<p>

Elizabeth dictates our itinerary for the day, and the first item on her agenda is to make a grand stop at Louis Vuitton with the assembled entourage. She struts in and points to the handbags she wants to try out, posing in front of the mirror with each bag. After about half an hour of this to-and-fro-ing, by which time she's tried out most of the bags in the store, she thrusts one of them into Anne's arms.

"Don't you want to get the classic style in brown instead?" says Anne. "That won't ever go out of style, and you'll get more mileage out of it."

"Oh Anne, haven't you picked up any concept of fashion, after so many years?" comes Elizabeth's retort. "That's the idea, don't you see? I want everyone to know I've got this season's style, in this season's color."

Anne sighs resignedly as she pulls her wallet out of her jeans pocket to foot the bill. "Here," she says, handing the fancy paper bag back to her sister afterward with a less-than-ceremonial air. "Carry it yourself."

Atta girl, Anne; she deserves that through and through. In fact, they both deserve much worse, and I wish I could be the one to dish it out to them; only I know that can never happen, not when Anne has already given every drop of loyalty she's got to every single member of that family of hers, and there isn't even the tiniest scrap left for me.


	8. Messi vs Rooney

**Chapter 8 - Messi vs. Rooney**

_September 2012_

_Anne_

Sophie has hit the nail right on the head - there's something not quite right about Fred. Now that we've reached our tenuous truce, I don't think he hates me anymore; but for some reason, he's still constantly got ants in his pants. Much as I don't want to think about that possibility, I wonder if it's got something to do with Lulu having gone off to college; he's spending a lot of time hanging around at our house, but whenever he's here he's always at a loose end. Like this time, when he's dribbling around in our front yard with Charlie's mini-soccer ball. As far as I know, he's never played a proper soccer game before; yet the concept of ball control comes naturally to him, what with the way he uses his instep to toy with the ball, creating quick power, only to reign it in with his heel a split second later. But despite all the energy he's putting into this activity, he's got no sense of purpose at all; there's no goal to aim at, and he's just going round and round in circles. And this irks me to no end; I'm simply not used to seeing such aimlessness in Frederick. I've also noticed some disturbing things about him at work too, and that's why everything erupts and I just have to open my big mouth.

"Tell me something, Frederick. Are you really satisfied with being Wayne Rooney, or do you ever think about being Lionel Messi again?" It's the soccer ball that triggers this idea, and once I spew out this analogy, I realize it encapsulates the entire message I want to get through to him in a neat little nutshell.

"Huh?" He looks up with a blank expression that's getting all too familiar these days; I can't tell if he's pretending, or if he's really that clueless. Either way, I'm rapidly losing patience.

"I was asking you to think about who you want to be. Do you just want to be Wayne Rooney, or could you see yourself being Lionel Messi?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he says. "Who are they, anyway?" Seriously, is he kidding me? But I give him the benefit of the doubt, and just take it as a fact that American football and soccer are really culturally exclusive after all. Yeah, so he was a football kind of person back in college. I guess that means he might really not know, but that doesn't mean he can't put in some effort to figure it out.

"If you really don't know, go and find out. I don't know which sports you watch on TV these days, but surely you still read the sports section of the newspaper from cover to cover. Because I'm serious about this. One of these days, I'm going to ask you again, and you'd better think about your answer." I glance pointedly at the soccer ball, and then at him. This is the only clue I'm giving him, and after that he'll have to be all on his own.

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

Random, that's what it is. Anne's thrown two hissy fits at me within less than two months, and from the way it can spew anytime, on any topic, I'd rather put my life savings on a roulette wheel than try to predict when the next one will come, or what it'll be about. If anybody comes up with an algorithm to predict women's mood swings, please keep me posted - I'd want it right away. Just don't expect me to do the research of finding out the pattern in all of this, because I've been thinking about it for the longest time and I can't see any. Hey, man, I'm just a dumb pilot, you know.

Messi and Rooney – from the hint she's given me, this has something to do about soccer, and why would I know anything about that? Soccer's for Europeans. This means, I've got to start looking across the Atlantic if I want to have any hope of finding the answers.

The first thing I do is to Skype Ed; he's lived in the UK long enough to become an honorary Brit as it is. And being Ed, his response is typically intellectual and academic.

"Oh man, how could you not know anything about Messi and Rooney?" says Ed; he really can't resist poking a little fun at me about this one. "But aren't you a little late for the Champions League final? Where were you all summer, Fred?"

"I'm not asking you about any Champions League final, or whatever you call it. I just want to know what Messi and Rooney mean, or rather, what they mean to you. Because somebody asked me about them, and I need to have an answer."

Ed whistles. "Wow. That somebody's got to be real special to get my all-American brother suddenly interested in football. Care to let me know who _she_ is?"

"Just a friend. We were just talking is all, and then this happened to come up."

"Well, I respect Messi very much as a player. He's phenomenal at the club level, and he's got some moments which are truly sublime. But his achievements are strongly tied to his team, and at the national level he still has yet to achieve the kind of results to really do justice to his potential.

"As for Rooney, what can you say? He's brilliant, and he's got a magic foot. Messi's playing style is prettier, I'll grant you that; but you can't ignore how Rooney has been delivering consistently, especially when he's in form. Both could be deemed the best player in the world, and there are many different opinions on that, depending on which factors you consider. In my opinion, it's too close a call to make, on pure merit at least; they're that closely tied."

"But who do you like better personally? If you had to choose to be either one of them, which one would you pick?"

"If you have to ask me, it shows you really don't know the Brit side of me very well after all, even though you're my brother. I only have one thing to say about it, and that's 'Glory, Glory Man United.'"

* * *

><p><em>Anne<em>

"Anne, are you coming out with us to lunch today? Or are you going to spend all of lunch hour ogling at pilots again?" asks Sara, who's in the cubicle next to mine in the office.

"I'll take a rain check on lunch today, thanks. And I don't ogle at pilots, by the way," I say defensively.

"Oh, really? Then what did I see you doing at airside during lunch break yesterday? Don't look so shocked, Anne. It just goes to show you're human after all. But of course, you've been the picture of prim and proper celibacy all along, which makes it all the more exciting for us to see you chasing after pilots now. So you've got to take it the right way, yeah, if we joke about it from time to time. No offense?"

"Sorry to disappoint you, but that was for work. I'm still boring little old me."

It _is_ related to work, never mind what my colleagues are thinking. Because I think I've got an idea that can give Fred a little bit of a kick, never mind that it isn't quite as perfect as I'd have liked. See, we're getting the 787* in about a year from now, and I'm leading the operational team that's getting our Detroit hub ready for the Dreamliner. In my position, I'm not responsible for choosing the pilots who'll be flying the Dreamliner, but I know some people I could talk to if I wanted to put a word in for Fred. Ideally, I'd wish Delta was the launch customer for the 787, so we'd be involved in the route-proving exercise, but unfortunately that honor goes to All Nippon Airways. Well, if I have to settle for a second-best situation, at least I'm in a position to give a little push for Fred to be one of our first batch of pilots to fly the 787 when it comes in. Hopefully, that'll help relieve his boredom a little bit; it's still nothing compared to flying a fighter jet, but it's the best I can do to give him something new to do and to think about.

I've been building up the case for Fred in my mind, because they'd probably pass him right over if I don't say anything; he's new, after all. But when I put whatever I know together, it all looks pretty good: his technical background, his standing at MIT, his experience as a military pilot, everything's working pretty well in his favor. The only thing that's missing from this picture is how he's being perceived in the organization so far, and that's where I've been sniffing around to get a better idea. _This_ is the pilot-chasing everyone in the office has been ribbing me about: I've been talking to pilots whenever I can get introductions from anyone I know, and observing the pilots every time I've got a pocket of free time at the airport. All of it's for the sake of one pilot, of course, but so far, everybody's guess as to who it is has been way off the mark. And it's a very useful exercise, because I learn a lot from all the things I see and hear.

"Fred Wentworth? That one, he's a smart cookie. But he's a bit too party hearty for his own good, if you ask me. There's never a night he doesn't go clubbing when we're overseas."

"Man, that guy's a riot. The Frat Boy, that's what he is. He's got a wicked sense of humor, and he's the best pal you could ever have. He's a great dude to hang out with, and he'll do just about anything for his buddies. What else can you ask for?"

"Mark my words, he'll go far, that chap. In terms of technical ability, he's as good as you can get, especially for someone who's new. But he's got to watch out about something – he's getting to be a bit too much of a Casanova, and that'll get somebody's back up sooner or later. I mean, all of us like to have our little bit of fun with the girls every now and then, but the way he's hitting on all the flight attendants, it's going to spell trouble for him one of these days. Discretion's the better part of valor, I say. But that guy's a magnet for women, and he's making sure everybody knows it through and through."

This last bit of info I take with a pinch of salt, because I'm familiar with the way Fred used to manage his appearance back in college so everybody'd think he was much more of a party animal than he really was, and for this reason I'm pretty sure there's actually less going on than meets the eye. To confirm my hunch about the whole thing, I snoop about the airport when Fred's flights come in; true enough, I see him chatting with a different flight attendant each time, but based on the rumors and whatever I see, he doesn't spend enough time with any one of them to be properly linked romantically to anybody. And from what I'm seeing of his comings and goings at home, it doesn't seem as though he's got all that much social activity going on either. Well, even if there was, I don't really have a right to comment, do I? Except that it's all for his own good – I'm old enough not to entertain any more illusions about men and their indiscretions, but most men I know of have the sense to be discreet about them, especially in the workplace. I don't have to know what game Fred's playing or what he's trying to prove, for me to know he'll be burned by it sooner or later – it'll just take one flight attendant thinking she's been slighted by his attention to the others, or maybe he'll happen to hang out with someone who happens to be another guy's girlfriend, and a trigger like that could create no end of problems for his professional and personal reputation. This is why I've got to the point where I can't keep quiet any more – even if I make a total fool of myself and die of the mortification as a result, I've got to say something to give Fred a wake-up call where he needs it. He's been behaving like a teenager for long enough, and somebody needs to unleash the adult in him before it becomes too late to save him from himself.

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

Well, I've asked an American dude living in Britain and I'm still none the wiser about the riddle that Anne has posed to me, so I guess the next step is to ask a British bloke living in America. This means the next person I Skype is James Benwick; he's the only one in our little group of friends who has defected from technical work in the aerospace industry, but I must say it's served him well; all this while, he's been making a pretty penny working on the East Coast in consulting.

"James, what do the names Lionel Messi and Wayne Rooney mean to you? And I'm not talking about their technical ability, but about what they represent to you as icons."

"Duuuude," James chuckles. "Since when did you ever care about European soccer? I never thought I'd be having a philosophical discussion with _you_ about soccer, of all people. But since you're here asking me this question, I'd be more than ready to wax lyrical about it, as you probably know already. Ready? Don't fall asleep, mind you. I've been waiting so long for the day my American buds would ever want to talk to me about this, and it'd be too much of an anti-climax if you doze off on me once I get started."

"I'm all ears, so shoot. Believe me - I want to listen to your answer even more than you want to tell me, if that's possible."

"Wow, wow. To whom do I owe this transformation in you? Not to say it's not welcome, though. It's always great to have one more buddy to talk about football – oh, sorry, I meant soccer, I guess I've got to use your lingo, but you do know 'football' in England can only mean soccer, don't you – with."

"A friend asked me whether I wanted to be Messi or Rooney. I don't have the least idea who these people are, or why I'd want to be either of them, but I've got to come up with an answer. So that's why I'm asking you."

"A _friend_, huh? Would it be someone we both know?" James suddenly stops short and I can see him on the video screen, staring at me. "She won't be _Anne Elliot_ by any chance, would she?"

"Anne Elliot? Why on earth would you think that?" Even though I have a reply, it's not quite quick enough; my momentary silence has probably betrayed the true answer already.

"Oh my God, it's true, isn't it? I was just saying it, just a wild guess, but it looks like I've actually struck jackpot after all. But why not? Among our 'friends', she's the only one who could ever get that kind of rise out of you. No, no, don't say it; you've been telling us you're over Anne Elliot for what, ten years now, and yet you're still pestering us about her every year without fail. So you've found her before we did, eh? Well, well. And she's become a soccer fan girl too? That's just great; you've got to send her to me. Then the three of us could talk, that'd be some party."

Thankfully, he barrels on without waiting for any kind of answer from me. "If she's a soccer fan, she'll be a Messi fan for sure, because he's one of the few legends left in sport and she's the kind of person who'll appreciate the kind of poetry that Messi makes out of football. You know how the quarterback's the main guy in American football? Well, Messi is like a quarterback, only he's also much, much more. He's got the creativity to set up great goals, but at the same time, his footwork in front of goal itself is the most beautiful thing you'll ever see, and it's effective, too. And he isn't a big guy, mind you; he's tiny. Small and deadly. Legends don't come any better than that. Plus, there aren't many sportsmen around today, where everyone agrees they're gentlemen both on and off the field. But Messi is one of these guys. Pure as a lily, his reputation is, even though he's one of the most successful footballers on the pitch these days."

"And what about Wayne Rooney? What do you think of him?"

"Rooney? He's talented, I'll give you that, and maybe you can also say he's a prodigy of sorts too. But at times, he can be – let's just say he's painfully human, and leave it at that. And Messi? Well, if I wasn't concerned about committing blasphemy, I'd say he's _divine_."

The way Benwick breathes reverence into that word leaves me completely incredulous; I've never known how a simple game of soccer could inspire worship like that. Sure, I've always liked football and baseball, but this kind of fanhood is a totally different level altogether.

"Did you see the World Cup, Argentina vs. Serbia and Montenegro, 2006? Messi was just 19 years old at the time …"

Benwick goes on and on for an entire hour, giving me a blow-by-blow account of all the amazing moments in Messi's career practically starting from babyhood. But at the end of it, I still have no idea of how any of this is supposed to hold any significance to me, or to Anne, or to both of us together. I've learned something from my conversation with Edward, though: whenever someone talks about soccer, you've got to find out about their team loyalties in order to make any sense out of what they say. And so I ask Benwick what is his favorite team is.

"Why, Barca of course. I might be from England, but that doesn't mean all football stops with the EPL. But if it's got to be the Premiership, well, _you'll never walk alone_…"

I've just used up both of my possible helplines, but still, I'm officially lost. See, this is just another reason why women are so complicated; not only do they give you riddles you can't solve, but you also end up realizing you have no idea why you want or need to solve the riddle in the first place.

* * *

><p><em>Anne<em>

"Why don't you use an analogy that he actually understands?" says Sophie when I tell her about my findings and my miserable attempt at getting through to Fred. "If it were me, I'd tell him to snap out of the Slim Shady act, and get back to being the real Fred."

"Slim Shady? Surely it isn't that bad?"

"From what you're telling me, it sounds like it is. There are so many girls in Shady's world, including Louisa, and the minute any of them fancies herself to be played out, things won't be pretty, just as you've pointed out. And poor Louisa's probably still thinking he's going to be her 'Superman'. Whether he is, or he isn't, he's still got to make it clear to her at some point."

"That's a good one," I say. Perfect, in fact. Fred's always been so hung up on appearances, he'll sometimes go to great lengths just to avoid losing face, until it's almost as though he's got another alter ego; a sometimes obnoxious one. "So why don't you talk to him about it?"

"I could, I guess, but he'll probably take it better from someone else. After all, I've been nagging him like a mom for over 20 years, and he's learned how to tune me out long ago."

"Well, I'll try. And I'll see where he takes it with my analogy first. But you're right – it's Fred's nasty alter ego that's out there now, and that's what's getting him into this rut. Someone's got to wake him up, and I've waited long enough already."

Sophie gives me a knowing look. "You must know Fred much better than the two of you are letting on, if you can understand what I'm saying about the whole Slim Shady analogy. And that's why you're the best person to shake him out of this. Go for it."

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

I'm just having a little bit of fun after mini-soccer practice, is all; I'm kicking a ball about in front of the goal, pretending I'm gonna score in the World Cup final. This is when Anne throws her third hissy fit at me, and it's only a week after the second one. I wonder how many more of these there'll be before the end of the world comes in December.

"So, have you thought about it? Are you Lionel Messi, or Wayne Rooney? Or Tiger Woods? When will you be done with dancing _Mambo No. 5_?" She's got me blindsided with this one, and it's not just about her words; it's also how angry she is. In my whole life, she's never, ever been this angry with me before.

"Wh-what do you mean?" This makes absolutely no sense to me at all. Believe me, I've been trying my very best to be a good friend to her, and God knows how hard that is already when I never wanted to settle for being just friends. So why, or perhaps I should be asking, why now?

"Don't give me that look. I asked you to think about it last week, didn't I? So have you figured out who you want to be? Will the real Fred Wentworth please stand up?"

"Anne, for Pete's sake, you're talking in riddles. Believe me, I've been trying to find out what you mean for a whole week already, but I still have no idea at all what you're driving at about this whole Messi and Rooney thing. If you have something to say to me, why don't you just give it to me straight once and for all?"

"Well, um –when I first knew you, way back at MIT – you were like Lionel Messi." She pauses and looks away, and she seems absolutely uncomfortable about what she's going to say next. "You were young, brilliant, and absolutely driven, a born leader. You were magical."

"And I need you," she continues, still not looking at me. "I need you to be the Frederick Wentworth I used to know -" For a moment, I wonder if I'm hearing it right, until I'm brought down to earth with a jolt with the next words she says.

"As you know, we're looking for the first batch of pilots to fly the Dreamliner next year, and it'd be a great opportunity for you to try out something new. With your skill as a military pilot and your engineering expertise, I think I could talk to my boss and try to put in a word for you somewhere, if you want it. But you've got to clean up your act and your reputation first, and that's why I'm asking you this. You have to ditch this Mambo No. 5 game, before it catches up with you."

_Tiger Woods. Mambo No. 5_. That's the real mystery about all of this, why she keeps going on and on about that, and why it bothers her so much in the first place. She's gotten over me long ago, hasn't she? So my so-called extracurricular activities shouldn't be any business of hers, not to mention that whatever I'm doing can hardly be considered as extracurricular when I've got no main curriculum to speak of. That's the rub, you see – I'm single, and it just has to happen that Anne Elliot gets thrown back into my life, at the point when that's the last thing I need to happen to me. Because after I've been forced to really get to know her all over again, I've learned that I'm far from being over her, even as it becomes clearer than ever that there's no way I could ever get back together with her again, because she's made her choice and she's sticking with it. Even if she's having a miserable life with her family and we're both hanging around each other all the time and both of us are still single, she's still choosing not to be with me. Which makes me the most pathetic dolt in the whole wide world, except nobody, especially nobody at work, needs to know anything about that. And so I just want to show everyone at work that Fred Wentworth's not one to be pitied; if there's any fun to be had, I'm more than up for it, and I've got a wonderful social life, thank you. Whatever frustration I feel inside can remain locked up and buried in a place where nobody can see.

"So, about the Dreamliner. Are you on, or not?"

_Are you on, or not?_ Those were the words she used when everything started so long ago; on that first run we had by the Charles River. And if one thing hasn't changed, even though it's been more than 15 years since then, it's that I just can't resist those words, not when they're coming from her.

"I'm on," I say. There's never been any other answer, not where Anne Elliot is concerned. I'm simply not capable of answering any other way.

* * *

><p>*Delta's procurement timeline for the Boeing 787 is an area where I've taken deliberate license with facts – the actual timeframe for Delta taking delivery of the 787s is delayed to 2020-2022. For purposes of the plot timeline, though, I'm imagining that if Delta had stuck with the original Northwest order, they would receive the first batch of 787s in 2013, and would have been the first customer in North America for the aircraft (worldwide, the launch customer for the 787 is All Nippon Airways). But now that the Northwest order has been pushed back, United Airlines will be the first US carrier to get the Dreamliner, with the first unit currently in production at Everett as I write this.<p>

_Disclaimer: The "Slim Shady" segment of this chapter makes references to Eminem's songs "Superman" and "The Real Slim Shady". _

_Chapter Afternote: Frederick's Skype conversations with Edward and Benwick are deliberate nods to canon again - Edward is the first person Frederick turns to in canon when he discovers his feelings for Anne, and Benwick's enthusiasm for "the kind of poetry that Messi makes out of football" is a parody of his love of poetry in canon._


	9. 14 Shots

**Chapter 9 – 14 Shots**

_Frederick_

_"Or Tiger Woods? When will you be done with dancing Mambo No. 5?"_ Anne's angry words still keep playing over and over in my mind, even after I've put Tiffany to bed for the night. Who exactly does she expect me to be faithful to, anyway? And it's not as if whatever I'm doing is that big a deal, actually; I've been very careful to spread my attention evenly so nobody can ever speculate that I'm serious about any one of them, and I'm also very careful not to raise anybody's expectations. Chatting and clubbing together is fine, but anything more – or anything after – is strictly out of bounds. In other words, I've done just the bare minimum to keep up appearances. But even if nobody expects me to be faithful to Anne, I never thought everybody'd end up expecting me to be faithful to _Louisa_.

My cell phone beeps for the first time at 10 p.m.; it's a multimedia message from Louisa Musgrove, and when I open it up, I find a picture of her posing provocatively, a deliberately cutesy smile on her face, with two fingers of her left hand extended in a "V" sign and a frosted bottle of vodka in her right. She's obviously at some kind of party; she's wearing a tiny, shimmery, strapless black dress, with her hair curled and swept up on top of her head, and her face is a mask of heavy eyeliner and glittery makeup. If I want to look at this kind of girl, I only need to open up any one of my brother-in-law's collection of Japanese manga books that Sophia has brought back from Okinawa, and that'd be easier on the ears than entertaining Louisa.

"19 today, and this is 1 9 to celebrate… break my record tonite… way to go for 14 shots!" the accompanying text message reads. I'm no stranger to these kinds of drinking challenges; I couldn't possibly avoid seeing them when I lived in a frat house for the whole of freshman year. But in my own younger years, I'd never indulged in that way, not when I was already aiming for a profession where being sober and alert is absolutely essential. So this message doesn't do anything for me except to stoke my resentment at Louisa; I don't see why she's got any reason to loop me into her little drinking exploit. She's going to college at Ann Arbor, living her life, and I'm here doing my job and minding my own business, so what do I have to do with all of this?

What's worse is that apparently, Louisa is far from being done with just that one message; she keeps sending me photos of herself over the course of the night, one for each shot she drinks. The story these pictures tell is a sad one that I'm all too familiar with, unfortunately. At the beginning, she thinks she's being cute but to a neutral third party like me, she comes across as just being silly in a way that people can only be when they're tipsy. By around five or six shots, she's already getting visibly wobbly, and there's a picture of her and Henrietta clinging on to each other, still trying to pose with that supposedly-cute "V" sign, at around shot nine or so; by now, it looks like Henrietta's the one who's holding her up and probably the one who's taking the photo. All the photos from that point onwards are definitely Henrietta's work, because Louisa is already slumping around and her texts are barely intelligible. It's around midnight when Louisa sends her last text to me: "brk rckd." I've got exactly 15 photos with 15 texts in my inbox to show me how Louisa's level of lucidity has been declining steadily from shot zero to shot 14, and I feel sorry for her because she's so out of it that she's probably beyond feeling any sense of triumph after getting to her stated goal, and the only thing she'll have achieved come morning is to wake up with a gigantic hangover.

I've seen kids doing stuff like this, and experimenting with other, worse stuff besides; and for me, staying out of it was a gritty dance with curiosity and temptation all the way through high school and college. Through most of my teenage years, I developed the skill of when to show up and when to duck out into a fine art, so I could put in enough face time at parties to be recognized as being "cool" and "with it", yet pull the Houdini act at the right moments to engineer my absence when any stuff I didn't want was being passed around. During my year at the frat house, things became much easier after I got to know Anne; nobody there would question what anyone's doing when they disappear off with their girlfriends, and if I wanted to study, I could just hole up in her dorm and none of the frat guys would be any the wiser. Giving me a place to remove myself to was the best favor Anne did for me when we first got to know each other in freshman year, because I'm human after all, and I had just as much curiosity and desire to fit in as any other teen. At times when it seemed as if almost everyone else around me was experimenting, it'd be easy to think that just one try, just to see what it was like, couldn't possibly hurt; and most of the time, the only thing that kept me clean throughout my teen years was the knowledge that I'd never be able to become a fighter pilot if I got addicted to anything, even accidentally.

So in a lot of ways, Anne was my lifeline back then; she's the person who made me who I am today, and that's what's made her so irreplaceable in my life. Even now, she's still trying to be a kind of lifeline to me with that whole thing about the Dreamliner. Before today, I'd never imagined that I could possibly be a figure she'd still look up to. Yet, impossibly, it seems that she has indeed kept on looking up to me all through the years, even during the times when we weren't seeing or talking to each other.

_"You were like Lionel Messi… you were magical… I need you… I need you to be the Frederick Wentworth I used to know…" _those words are telling me way, way more than any of the other verbal or visual cues I've gotten from her over an entire year. Because after I got home, I went online to read everything about Lionel Messi that I could get my hands on, and I finally realized how powerful that comparison was. I'd thought Benwick's raving was as over-the-top as anyone could get, but as it turns out, Messi is indeed viewed as such a legend by fans all over the world. And most tellingly, Messi didn't become famous until around 2006 or so, which was about five years after Anne and I broke off. I'm not sure exactly when Anne started following soccer, but one thing is clear – no matter when she decided to become a Messi fan, it only shows that Anne has actually been thinking that highly of me all this while.

* * *

><p>When my cell phone wakes me up at 2 a.m., I'm a hair's breadth away from shouting out every single swear word in my vocabulary. It doesn't help that the call is, apparently, from Louisa's cell phone; I wonder if she's going to get all mischievous on me, and of all nights, tonight I'm definitely not in the mood to handle pick-up calls from a tipsy teenager.<p>

"Freddie?" The voice on the other end of the line is tearful and frightened, and definitely not the voice of a teenager who wants to pick me up. So, it seems I'm even more of a lowlife than I thought I was; I've obviously overestimated my popularity, even with Louisa Musgrove.

"Louisa?"

"No, it's Hetty here. I'm calling you because Lulu… she's passed out… and I can't wake her up. Can you come help us, _please_?"

"Shouldn't you be telling your parents or Charles about this? I mean, I used to see kids drinking till they pass out all the time when I was in college, and like them, she'll probably be all right when she wakes up tomorrow. Hung over, definitely, but she'll be fine. But if you're worried, then your family should be the first to know."

"Please don't tell Charles," the tearful voice on the line says. "He'll tell Mom and Dad, and then we'll be in deep trouble. Mom made us promise not to drink while we're at college, and Dad'll kill us when he finds out."

"I'm sorry, Henrietta, but I really have to. It's the right thing for me to do, because ultimately, it's your family whom you'll have to answer to. I'm sure they'll understand. OK?"

For a long while, Henrietta's sobs are all I hear on the line, but finally, she manages to choke out a tentative "OK".

"OK, then. I'm calling Charles right away, and I'll ask him to call you back before he says anything to your parents. Don't worry. I'm sure he knows what to do."

* * *

><p><em>Anne<em>

… _I've taken over the Argentina national team from Maradona, and it's a World Cup final match, a chance for us to avenge our 2010 loss to Germany, where we're at the climax of a penalty shoot-out, 4-5 down with just one more penalty kick to go – ours. At this point, we've got everything to lose, because if this last kick's a miss, we're out of the game, and this is the kind of situation I'm counting on Messi for. The Messi who steps up to the penalty spot, though, is taller than he should be, and to my horror, I realize that the person wearing the No. 10 jersey is not Messi, but Fred. From how he approaches the ball, I already know he's going to miss, because rather than trapping the ball before the shot and assessing the goalie, he just shoots blindly. To avoid that moment, I bury my face in my hands, but I still can't resist peeping between my fingers anyway. Fred leads with the toe of his boot instead of the instep, and this causes him to shoot high; the ball slams against the cross bar and rebounds right back onto the pitch. In unison with Fred's spectacular miss, I slap my forehead while the rest of the team flop prostrate on the ground in grief. But Fred isn't repentant at all; I hear rapping and find that Fred's the one who's doing it; he's turned peroxide blond like Slim Shady and he's taunting me with "Won't the real Anne Elliot please stand up, please stand up, please stand up…"_

_Then, a horde of flight attendants floods the pitch like a herd of elephants; they sweep the rest of the players aside and carry off Fred lying on his side over their shoulders, and he's still rapping, moving his hands and shoulders, as they spirit him away. Meanwhile, the lead flight attendant comes right up to me and strikes a pose._

"_Fred-die doesn't want to see you streaking around the Obelisk, not when he's got us," she says, pursing her blood-red lips. "That's why he won't win the World Cup for you." _

_Instead of fading off as Fred disappears farther and farther away, the rapping actually gets louder and louder_, until I open my eyes and find that at least one part of this scenario's actually real; the rap music is coming from Charles' cell phone. But nobody's picking up, and much as I dislike barging in on Charles and Mary in the middle of the night, somebody's got to shut that thing up before it wakes the whole house.

"Charles, darling… _you_ get it, OK?" I hear Mary saying as I creep up to their doorway.

"Mmpf… Naw… no need… Just leave it alone and it'll stop after awhile…"

Obviously the cell phone's been trained to obey its master, because the rapping does stop short at that point, but the silence is short-lived; after about a minute or so, our home telephone starts to ring and I make a mad dash to pick it up.

"Hello?"

"Hello – Anne, is that you?" It sounds like Fred, but why would he be calling us at 2 a.m.?

"Yeah, I'm Anne," I say. "Who is this?" I don't trust myself to address the caller as Fred, in case I'm hearing Fred's voice only because a part of me is still stuck in that dream.

"I'm Fred, don't you know? I was looking for Charles actually, but since I've got you, maybe you could help talk to him for me. Henrietta called me a couple minutes ago to say Louisa's passed out after drinking fourteen shots of vodka at a party. She sounded pretty worried, and she was asking for help. You might want to tell Charles to call her back, and another thing – I've also promised her that I'd ask Charles to call her first to assess the situation before saying anything to Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove. Will you pass the message on to him?"

"OK," I say. "I'll do that. Don't worry – we'll take care of it from here."

"Great, thanks. Good night. Bye."

* * *

><p>By the time I pad back to Charles and Mary's room, the kids have woken up from all the ringing, and they're sticking their heads in the doorway already.<p>

"Mommy, what time is it?" Charlie asks.

Mary yawns. "Time for you to be in bed," she says drowsily.

"But we can't sleep! The phone's ringing. Why is the phone ringing?"

"I've picked up the call, so the phone won't ring anymore," I tell him. "You guys go back to bed, OK? I've got something really important to say to Daddy."

Instead of heading back to their room, Charlie and Wally run into their parents' bedroom and crawl into the big bed with Charles and Mary. Reluctantly, Charles gets up and comes over to me.

"What's up, Anne? What was that call about?"

"It was Fred," I explain. "Apparently Lulu has passed out after drinking fourteen shots of vodka, and instead of calling us, Hetty called him, asking for help. He's promised her that you'll call her back. Would you mind?"

"Yeah, well, OK," says Charles. "But I'm not sure if we could be of much help beyond just comforting Hetty. After all, it's just a matter of sleeping it off, isn't it? But, I must say, Fred's making a really big deal out of this. I never knew he cared about Lulu that much, though. She's so much younger, and I'd thought it was just a teenage crush on her part. Looks like things are more two-sided than we'd imagined, huh?"

"Did you just say Lulu's going out with _Fred Wentworth_?" Mary perks up in interest. "He's a great catch for her, to be sure. But it'd be even better if he'd chosen Hetty instead, then she wouldn't be hanging around that grungy Hayter boy all the time. I can't imagine for the life of me what she sees in him, with those piercings and all. Anne, what do you think?"

"I think we ought to get back to the point," I say, "which is that one of us should be calling Hetty to find out what's happening with Lulu."

Mary gasps. "Oh yes - I just remembered, I read this article about Shelby's Rules in _Good Housekeeping_, and it talks about how teens could actually _die_ from drinking too much. You're supposed to test their condition by calling their name, and it's not a good sign if they're too out of it to answer you; you're supposed to take them to a hospital right away if that happens. Do you think that means Lulu could be _dying_, for all we know?"

I put my hand out and touch the wooden bedroom door; it won't hurt to knock on wood a little, even if I normally don't believe in superstitions like that. Really, Mary can be such a drama queen sometimes, and it'd be terrible if that became a self-fulfilling prophecy just because she said it out loud.

"Mary, _dear_," Charles is using the same voice he reserves for Charlie whenever he's throwing a tantrum. "Do you really have to make things so dramatic? It's just a simple hangover. I should know – I've had my share of them back in college myself."

"I'm not kidding," protests Mary. "Why won't anyone ever take what I say seriously? I really read that!"

"OK, I guess I'll call them then and figure out what's happening," says Charles, and I take the cue to go about hustling the kids back to their room.

"No," Wally protests. "We want Mommy and Daddy."

"We're scared," says Charlie. "Is Aunty Lulu really going to die?"

"No, she isn't," I say, while Mary raises her voice and screeches, "How do you know? She might very well die if you don't hurry! You see, nobody _ever_ listens to me in this house."

"Charles? The kids are asking for you, would you want to talk to them? I can help call Hetty in the meantime if you need me to," I offer. "I'm up anyway, so it's really no problem for me to make the trip to Ann Arbor if it's needed. And I'll keep you posted about the situation."

As Charles settles the kids, struggling to come up with euphemisms to answer the barrage of questions from Charlie, I call Hetty's cell phone.

"Hetty? It's Anne here. Fred told us about Lulu, and I can come around to help if you need it. Can you tell me what happened?"

"Lulu, she – please, _please_ don't tell Mom and Dad, OK? The sorority sisters threw us a 19th birthday party tonight, and Lulu said she wanted to drink vodka, so they challenged her to drink 19 shots, one for each year of her life. She tried to knock the number down a little, 'cause we know people could die from drinking too many shots, but she wanted to push herself to the limit of whatever is humanly possible. Challenge the boundaries, you know? So, she told them she'd do 14 shots and that'd be a personal record for her already.

"I knew she'd be sick after drinking this much, so I wasn't worried when she went off to the bathroom. But when she didn't come out after almost an hour, we decided to break in to go check on her, and she'd fallen asleep on the bathroom floor. But she won't wake up when we call her, and that's when I asked Freddie to help us."

"You did the right thing to call somebody," I say, now armed with the knowledge of what to do because of Mary's information on Shelby's Rules. If there's any time her extensive medical reading has come in useful, this is it. "And I'm coming over right now. Can you call 911, and after they come, text me to confirm if they're sending you to University Hospital. I'll be driving over to meet you, and I'll be looking for you at the ER entrance."

* * *

><p>It's 4 a.m. by the time everything settles down; Hetty has given in to tiredness long ago, and she's fallen asleep sprawled across a row of chairs in the hallway, but I don't have that kind of luxury for myself. They say Lulu will be fine, but they're still keeping her overnight for observation; with hardly any of the night left by now, I guess there's no difference whether they send her home now or tomorrow, anyway. So I text Charles and Fred to tell them how to reach us, and then I pull up a chair next to Lulu's bed to keep watch over her till they come in the morning. Poor Lulu; we were just Skyping her and Hetty to tell them "Happy Birthday" in the afternoon before they went out partying with their friends, and none of us could've guessed that this is how the day would end for them.<p>

With nothing left to do but watch and wait, the whole issue about Fred starts circling around in my mind all over again. Like Charles, I'd thought Lulu's obsession with Fred was just a passing teenage crush, and though I'd cringed inwardly at how Fred seemed more than happy to let Lulu's crush stoke his ego rather than setting her straight in a brotherly way like he should, I figured things would pass sooner or later, especially with the twins going off to college. But it doesn't look as if things have passed, not when Fred's the first person they call when this happens - not their parents, not Charles, not me, but Fred. And Fred's worried enough to call Charles right in the middle of the night, which puzzles me - if Mary hadn't said what she did about Shelby's Rules, I wouldn't have considered the situation to be that urgent. But if Fred does indeed care for Lulu in that way, even a little bit, then why is he still chatting up all the flight attendants? The Fred I used to know would have too much integrity to two-time like that.

There's no sane explanation for all the contradictions I find in this situation, and through it all, I can't escape that I, with my big mouth, have officially, spectacularly put my foot in it. Because I didn't stop short at the Messi and Rooney analogy, but I just had to continue with the whole business about Tiger Woods and _Mambo No. 5_. Now Fred will know how much I mind him flirting around with the flight attendants, and to what purpose? If he's really going out with Lulu, maybe it'll serve as a reminder to him to be faithful to her, and had I been a disinterested party, I could perhaps hide behind that moral high ground. But Fred can probably see that I wasn't at all disinterested when I said it, and I'd only be betraying myself further if I ever bring up the matter to him again. But even if I could, any talking I do with Fred will have to wait until Lulu's recovered; for now, the only thing I can do is to watch over Lulu until he or Charles comes, and even though there are only a few more hours left till the sunrise, I feel as if the longest night of my life has only just begun.

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

6 a.m., Monday morning. When my cell phone alarm goes off, I see there's a new text message already; and this time, it's from Anne. It reads:

"Charles, Fred – Lulu treated for alcohol poisoning, but recovering well. Dont worry she will be fine. We are at University Hospital, Ann Arbor, Rm 332. See u tmrw. Love, Anne."

_Love, Anne_. From the way it's written, that could've been meant for Charles, for me, or for both of us. Since the message was written at 4 a.m., I'm willing to bet she probably wasn't even clear herself about who she was actually addressing it to when she wrote it. But Anne doesn't love Charles; at least, she doesn't love him the way she used to love me. He's her brother-in-law, and for the most part of her life, he's been like her brother, in fact. Is this supposed to mean I'm like her brother too?

Brother or not, I have one piece of evidence now that Anne has saved a bit of her loyalty for me after all, over the years. That's from what she said about "Lionel Messi". And I also have proof that she cares enough about me to be unhappy about my hanging out with the flight attendants. That's the bit about "Tiger Woods" and "_Mambo No. 5_". Besides, if she knows about the flight attendants, it means she's got to be snooping on me secretly at the airport; there's no other way she could possibly find out. If I put two and two together like that, then "Love, Anne" aren't the words of someone who loves me as a brother at all, and the whole business of her hanging onto my Pontiac suddenly makes perfect sense.

It still doesn't gel with the fact that she has chosen not to get back together with me after her grandma passed away, but this time around, I'm willing to hazard a guess as to why that might be the case. She's been paying for all those stupid things her dad and sister were splurging on for the week they came to Detroit, hasn't she? So who's to say she isn't paying for everything else as well? I have no idea how she can possibly afford it on her engineer's pay, but then again, isn't that the point? She can't afford it, and that's why she refuses to get involved with me, or with anyone else; she won't tie anybody to that kind of financial servitude, except herself. And I know ELMSCO, at least, is in debt, and that the Elliots can't afford to live in Grosse Pointe anymore.

So _this_ is the form her loyalty to me takes in the end – effectively, she's not only sacrificing me for her family, but also sacrificing herself for me, in a way. She knows, better than anyone else, about how much it means to me to be able to come back to my childhood home and show my parents, if they can see from heaven or wherever they are, how I've become as successful as they would've wanted me to be if not for all the other burdens we were facing as a family back then. If I'd been tied to a mountain of Elliot debt, it would've pulled me right back down again, and she's stayed away from me on purpose to avoid just that. The timing certainly fits my theory, because according to Charles, the Elliots moved off to Florida in fall 2001, which was quite soon after Anne broke off with me. This kind of loyalty has caused me more than ten years of unnecessary misery, just as, I'm sure, it has caused her; and now it's time for me to bring all of that to a close once and for all.

Anne's got to be dog tired, after sitting around in the hospital for so many hours on end. I suppose she'll appreciate it if someone drove her home, and anyway, it's Charles' responsibility to stick around with Louisa; she's _his_ sister, after all. So I call Charles, telling him I'll pick him up in about half an hour to drive to Ann Arbor together, so that he can use Anne's car to bring Louisa back when she's discharged, while I give Anne an earlier ride home.

Then I make some oatmeal for breakfast and leave the pot covered on the stove, and pen down a note asking Sophia to tell the school bus driver to bring Tiffany here instead of to the Musgroves' after school today, because I figure they'll have their hands full enough with Louisa, and so we shouldn't have to make them take care of Tiffany on top of that. The last thing I do before leaving the house is to wake up Sophia, so she can help get Tiffany ready for kindergarten and send her off when the school bus comes. And then I'm out the door, going off to get Charles and to bring Anne back.

* * *

><p><em>Disclaimer: The rap lyrics in this chapter are still derived from Eminem's "The Real Slim Shady".<em>


	10. Austen Gentleman

**Chapter 10 – Austen Gentleman**

_Frederick_

It's Charles who first brings it up, as we're coasting along the freeway to Ann Arbor.

"Fred, are you dating Lulu?"

"No, why? I - " I'm on the verge of saying I think of Louisa as a little sister, but knowing that her behavior to me has hardly been sisterly and I'd done nothing at all to stop it, I check myself. "I think of her as a friend, is all."

"Because I never knew they were that close to you, to be calling you instead of us when this happened. And I bet you've got to be real concerned about Lulu, to be calling us last night and bringing me out first thing in the morning like this. But hey, Anne said she'll be OK, didn't she? So don't worry too much. I'm sure things will be fine."

"I'm concerned for her in the way I'd be for any of my friends," I say; I'm not at all comfortable with the direction in which this conversation is heading. "And I called last night because I felt that as her family, you guys had a right to know. That's all."

I can't be more emphatic than that without sounding callous, but what I've said still isn't enough, because Charles just doesn't seem to get it.

"Spoken like a true gentleman," he says. "To be honest, I'd thought Lulu would be a little too young for you. But if you both really like each other, well, you're a good guy and a great pal, so why shouldn't I be happy for you? There's no need to be shy about it, really. Treat my little sister well, willya?"

When it's put this way, I'd be inhuman to say no. Keeping my eyes straight ahead on the road, I give Charles the slightest of nods. "Of course I will. As a good friend. And a big brother." There are actually three more words I want to say so badly, but can't: "And nothing more."

* * *

><p><em>Anne<em>

Keeping vigil means you never sleep; you're supposed to be watching, waiting; though for the most part nothing happens and you hope nothing will happen, because any kind of drama can't possibly be a good thing where hospitals are concerned. The last time I sat in a hospital like this was when Grandma passed away, and over the last 24 hours, Rosa and I were each holding one of Grandma's hands while stroking her legs to keep the circulation going, hanging on doggedly while we awaited, yet dreading the moment when we'd feel the life seep out of her. I was terrified that I'd fall apart when that happened, yet I knew I had no choice but to stay, because I'd never forgive myself if I walked away and left Grandma alone at the end. So I sat there talking, telling her how thankful I was for all she'd done for me in my life, hoping she would hear because they say hearing is the last sense to go, and trying to keep the tears out of my voice so that if she could indeed hear me in the recesses of her sleep, at least she wouldn't suspect how dire the situation was. She was hooked up to all these monitors beeping out her vital signs, and I insisted all of them had to be put to silent mode, trying to avert the final horror when they would all go crazy; it wasn't just that I couldn't take it, but most of all I wanted her to go without fear, without having to hear all that, if hearing was really the last sense to go.

This vigil might not be the same as that last one, but I still hate waiting in hospitals, counting the minutes and hours as they pass. But this time, unlike with Grandma, my wishes for myself and my wishes for the patient are actually in accord; both ways, I want the time to pass faster, so that morning will come, Lulu will wake up, and Fred or Charles can take over. Now that the whole adrenaline rush from the ER has passed, I feel like everything's swimming around me, and I could nod off just any minute. On principle, though, I have to stay awake if I'm keeping vigil over Lulu, and so I prop my head in my hands and physically pry my eyelids open every time they threaten to droop. Maybe if I remind myself of last night's bizarre dream, that'd help keep me from falling asleep – I certainly don't want a replay or a continuation, especially if the new, improved next edition features Lulu co-starring with Fred, in addition to the entire supporting cast.

It's not yet 7.30 a.m. when Fred, followed by Charles, walks through the door; clearly, they've made it a point to come here first thing in the morning, and that tells me just how anxious they both are about Lulu. I stand tentatively, grabbing the back of the chair to steady myself, and launch mechanically into my report on Lulu's condition; in all this, I amaze myself at the level of detachment I'm able to convey.

"We've got past the worst of it, and they say she ought to be fine from here; if all's well, we should be able to bring her home pretty soon, after she wakes up and they have a chance to check her out. Fred, thanks for calling us last night – you saved her life, basically. They said it might've been too late if we'd waited till morning to bring her in, so it was all in the nick of time. But she's out of danger now, so really, it's OK now, don't worry."

I'm looking at the floor while I'm talking to them, so I don't see Fred when he responds with a "Thank God," though I do hear the palpable relief in his voice. Everything that follows, though, is completely mumbo-jumbo to me. It's Charles who steps up to Lulu's bedside, while Fred claps him on the shoulder and says, "Hey, bro, I'm gonna make a move now and try to get some sleep before my flight tonight. Let me know how she's doing, yeah?"

"Anne." Somebody's touching my arm now, and it's Fred's voice that's speaking to me, only he hasn't been that gentle with me for many, many years. "Would you like a ride home? You look like you could use some sleep."

Even though it's a workday, I know it'd be a wasted day if I tried to go into the office; I've already texted my boss to tell him I'd be taking an urgent day off, as early in the morning as I could pull it off without being skinned alive. Going home to crash sounds like a very tempting idea, though it completely rips me apart that, of all times, Fred's caring self has got to surface at this juncture, just as I'm struggling with how and whether to take him to task on his amorphous situation with Lulu and the flight attendants. But I really have no energy to think about Fred's moral dilemma or to consider what my residual feelings for Fred might be when I'm as tired as this, so I say yes mechanically, putting all thought and feelings aside. I'm barely moving my head with the nod I give him; by this time, I'm so far gone that speech, or even seeing straight, is completely beyond me.

The walk through the hallways and across the parking lot passes in such a blur that I might as well have been sleepwalking; it's a good thing Fred offered me a ride because there's no way I could've possibly driven home myself. I've barely gotten into the car when I mumble an apology to Fred, and then I just let go, allowing myself to cave to the impulse that's been consuming me for the most part of the past few hours. And I don't care anymore about having a rerun of that awful dream or even something worse; anyway, I'm already so exhausted that dreams are beyond me at this point.

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

"Frederick, I'm sorry I'm too tired to be good company at the moment," Anne mumbles as she settles into the front passenger seat. "I hope you don't mind if I just want to sleep on the way home. Thank you so much for the ride."

All the way from the hospital room to the car, she's barely said two words to me; and now, she probably thinks she's defusing the situation by sleeping, or pretending to sleep so we won't have to talk to each other. It's just as well, because I haven't fully sorted out what I'm going to say to her; it seems like everything's a total mess right now.

If I really search my conscience, I know Charles' assumption that I'm going out with Louisa isn't completely unfounded; even if it was all in fun, I should've gently rebuffed Louisa instead of letting her go on like that if I really wanted to be just a big brother to her. And Anne sent that middle-of-the-night text about Louisa's condition to me as well as Charles; I'd just thought it was her way of following through since I was the one who'd called, but after that little conversation with Charles in the car, I can't help wondering if she might be thinking along the same lines too. Whichever way it is, I can't escape that I was a complete dolt with zero situational awareness, and I've totally blown it as far as my recent dealings with Anne are concerned. Sure, it doesn't change my end goal at all, which is to repair my relationship with Anne if it's at all possible; but knowing the destination doesn't necessarily translate into being able to map out the journey. It's been a long road for me to finally come to this point of realization, and there's still a discouragingly long way to go before I can get to where I want to be.

* * *

><p><em>Anne<em>

It's practically lunchtime when I wake up, and it doesn't take long for me to figure out whose room I'm in when the telltale sign is a pilot's uniform, standing out sharply against the whitewashed wall that it's been hung against. The last thing I remember is Fred driving me home from the hospital, which means that instead of dropping me off at home, he's somehow decided to smuggle me into his home instead.

Even if it makes me a really small person after all, I'm not above snooping a little around Fred's room, now that I've been planted there. This room is neatly, clinically masculine with no extraneous clutter lying around, and most of the fittings are in minimalist glass and chrome, with the exception of two pieces of simple traditional dark wooden furniture – the bed and the desk. The wooden pieces don't look out of place, though, because they've been neatly integrated into the overall style by carrying through the room's black and gray color scheme in the upholstery on the desk chair and the linens on the bed.

The focal point of the room is an array of nine aircraft lithographs, set in slim silver frames, mounted on the wall above the bed; each of these features a different type of fighter jet, and they've been arranged to form a perfect square. None of these prints is familiar to me, save for one; it's the one right in the center, which was my 21st birthday present to Fred. Against the wall next to the bed, there's a glass-fronted floor-to-ceiling display cabinet containing an extensive collection of model aircraft, military and civilian, old and new: whimsical children's toy fighter planes made of wood; a replica of the _USS_ _Enterprise_ aircraft carrier complete with exquisitely detailed US Navy aircraft the size of my fingertip; and various commercial jetliners, spanning all five decades of the jet age, each bearing a different airline livery, all arranged meticulously with a deliberate eye to the aesthetics of the entire ensemble. Amidst this array of model aircraft, which would put many a hobby shop to shame, I manage to locate the scale model of an F-16 I gave to Fred as a congratulatory present when he got his Air Force pilot slot; it's sitting in a surprisingly central position within the military aircraft display.

Moving from the highlights to the details, I notice that Fred's kept every single piece of aviation literature he's come in touch with in his entire career, ranging from all our old college textbooks, to technical manuals, to _Jane's All the World's Aircraft_ yearbooks starting from 2001-2002, the year after we graduated, until the latest one. He's also expanded his collection of books about the aviation industry beyond the ones we were assigned in college; some of the out-of-print titles are only available second hand nowadays, and seeing them makes me drool with envy.

This room definitely belongs to Frederick Wentworth the man, and the only indication, if any, of Fred the teenager is hidden from plain view. Stashed away in a corner of the bookshelf, there's an innocuous-looking little box covered in black faux leather; it's the one Fred started his collection of Eminem CDs in, and I can guess he's probably got every album and every single that's been released from _Infinite_ to _Recovery_ in that box by now. Fred's fascination with Eminem hit full force back when _The Slim Shady LP_ was released in the spring of '99, while we were finishing our junior year; and you can imagine how that threw up all the little incongruities of our childhood backgrounds into the forefront. Do you know what _The Slim Shady LP_ is? That album actually has a parental advisory warning on it, and the rap lyrics cover all kinds of shocking topics, ranging from murder to domestic abuse to drugs, all with graphic detail, peppered with profanities and set to burlesque musical accompaniments to top it all off.

"Fred, that stuff is only fit for teenage boys who'd do anything to shock their mo-… the adults speechless," I'd told him in exasperation when he'd played the CD one time too many for my liking. "Can't we just do our thermodynamics homework in peace without _Role Model _playing in the background? We're 21, aren't we way past that by now?"

"But maybe that's exactly my objective. Hey, I'm having way more fun shocking you than most guys would have shocking their _mommas_," he'd replied cheekily, deliberately putting emphasis on the word I'd been trying so delicately to avoid, all the while wearing a devilish grin.

Our college years were at the time when Eminem grew from being an underground rap sensation into international stardom, and Fred was so swept up with it that if there were two things he'd blow his entire summer earnings on, watching Eminem perform live would rank right up there, second only to flying. In fact, Fred's tendency to blow off all his summer earnings, minus the percentage he'd remit over to Sophia right away on pay day, was a key element of fodder for Grandma's disapproving comments about Fred during the summer of '97, the time when I told my family about my relationship with him.

"I don't see why that young man of yours has to fritter away all his money on flying lessons," Grandma had said. "Flying is an unnecessary luxury when you can't afford it, and he should be putting away some savings for his future instead of chasing after frivolous things like that."

"It isn't frivolous, and it isn't unnecessary," I'd protested. "There's so much competition for pilot slots these days, and doing some actual flying is the only way he can differentiate himself from all those guys who sit on their butts all day playing war games on their Playstations and watching _Top Gun_. It's even more critical for him, in fact, because he's pursuing an engineering degree. With his grades and standing, he could easily be assigned to work in an engineering role, unless he shows them just how interested he is in being a pilot. In fact, he's the one who thought out all this, and he explained it all to me."

With Fred's expenditure on flying already sparking off a stream of nagging that had no end, I wonder how Grandma would have taken it if she'd known about his fan-worship of Eminem. In the summer of '99, Fred probably spent as much time and money chasing after Eminem's performances for _The Slim Shady LP_ on the Vans Warped Tour as he did clocking actual flying hours, and he'd stayed in backpacker's hostels as he hopped from city to city. It went to the extent that he actually asked me to delay my summer visit home after my Boeing internship in order to catch one of the concerts with him, but I flatly refused in anticipation of the inevitable slew of disapproval coming from my family.

We'd have enough to contend with whenever they found out that Fred and I had actually continued our relationship; to me, there was no need to complicate things even more by risking further jeopardy to my goodwill with Father and Grandma over Slim Shady in the meantime. Sure, I didn't have to tell them exactly where I was going, but what if they found out anyway? I'd get into trouble first for lying, and then for listening to that kind of music on top of that. Besides, it wasn't rocket science that Father and Grandma would be the last people to understand why listening to someone spouting shockingly cavalier lyrics about violence, crime, drugs and promiscuity doesn't necessarily mean that the listener himself is evil; and it'd be completely not worth it to give them an excuse to dismiss Fred as a criminal-in-the-making just because of a bunch of rap songs. There were already enough things about Fred they could never understand – Father thought it was a huge disgrace to the Elliot family for me to be dating someone who was doing a menial job like pumping gas, MIT student or not; and Grandma felt it was highly reckless of Fred to spend off his summer earnings instead of dutifully squirreling them away like any good boy should, not to mention that in her eyes, flying, especially with the Air Force, was a very dangerous career.

Neither of them could ever see that Fred was always the perfect gentleman; never mind that it's such a funny thing to say about someone when I knew all his silly habits and he needled me with jokes and behavior worthy of _South Park_ every once in a while. And I don't have to look any farther than the Warped Tour of '99 to give the best example of why I say so. After that horrible summer of '97, when Father and Grandma kept on giving me what-for about my relationship with Fred, I gave him a frank account of how they felt, and let him know I would be sticking with him regardless of their opinion, but that we'd have to band together to strategize whenever there was a need to navigate around them. This was how I felt we should deal with the issue, as equals; and so when I said no about the concert and explained why it wasn't good for our strategy, he gracefully dropped the whole issue without a word about how extremely (and unfairly) insulting the whole situation was to himself.

All those years, no matter what Father or Grandma said, I understood Fred; oh yes, I did, in the way only young people determined to make the most out of every little bit of life could. I could see how Fred scrimped and saved all year from his scholarship money, denying himself every little luxury of college student life that wouldn't prove fatal to his status of coolness, in order to put together a percentage to send over to Sophia; and I knew that he still sent the same percentage of his summer earnings over to her no matter what else he blew off after that. So the rest of the summer wages were disposable income to Fred, and he'd explained his reasoning about the Warped Tour so convincingly.

"It'll be senior year, and then I'll be busy flying an F-16, right? So this has got to be the first and last time I can spend a whole summer catching Eminem on tour. And it's his watershed album, the one that'll be the making of him, so there's no way I could ever miss this because no other album will ever be the same again. Besides, I'll earn back all the money in an instant after I join the Air Force."

"An F-16, huh? Tell me that again, _after_ you finish UPT and actually get allocated to an aircraft for real," I'd said, but there was a smile on my face when I said it. Because I was familiar with Fred's over-confident pronouncements by then, and no matter how presumptuous they seemed at first, somehow all his prophecies had an uncanny way of fulfilling themselves. People thought he was brash, but I knew he wouldn't say something unless he somehow knew he'd be able to pull it off.

Well, I had to rest my case, because I also knew it simply wouldn't be possible for Fred _not_ to be a rabid fan of Eminem with the obvious parallels in their situations; after all, Eminem is also a child of Detroit who grew up seeing the life on the wrong side of 8 Mile Road, and he rose to meteoric success despite that background, or maybe even because of it. The story's so compelling that even the little PC schmuck that I was eventually saw beyond the lyrics and the outrageous exterior to become a fan of Eminem myself, even though I'm still not a fan of some of his more over-the-top lyrics. Being Fred's biggest fan and being Eminem's fan became synonymous in my mind, to the extent that in those years we were apart, I got myself a secret little black box like that in my own room too.

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

_Sheesh_. If everyone thinks I'm going out with Louisa, it just means one thing – when I finally have to tell them the truth, they'll probably think I'm the worst kind of womanizing playboy in the world. Anne gave me the hint already when she talked about _Mambo No. 5_, and yet I was too blind to see it until those multimedia messages from Louisa actually started hitting my inbox. And now, I'm going to have to tell Louisa I can't be her "Superman". If I were Slim Shady, I suppose I could just say, "What you Louisa? Fly through twice." But I'm not Shady; I'm Wentworth, and I always try my very best to be an honorable man.

I could defend myself, I guess – after all, she couldn't have seriously thought anything was possible between us when she was just a high school kid getting ready to go to college, and I'm old enough to plausibly be a dad; and besides, I never asked her out on any actual dates, and I was never the one to initiate any physical contact with her except just dancing, and anybody can dance with anybody else, right? But it seems like the more I say, the more I sound like a cad for saying it, even if the technicalities are all covered. The dumbest part of it all is that I never had the intention of leading Louisa on in the first place; I was only escaping from Anne. I just didn't want anyone to know how bitter I was feeling about her, so I hid behind a mask of having fun with anyone who happened to be available at that moment, be it the kids, the twins, or whoever. Although I've heard the cliché "the tears of a clown" many times before, I never really appreciated the meaning of it until I started living it these past months; I knew I was acting silly, but all of that was just an attempt to put a happy face to all the sadness and resentment inside me. Now that I know for sure that Anne never disdained me and in fact she looked up to me, or at least she did until now, it all makes things even worse because all of it was so unnecessary, not to mention that running away like that was the most cowardly thing I've ever done in my entire life.

In the meantime, I've got Anne sleeping in my bed, and I'm hanging around in my own house without being able to park my butt in any single spot for more than ten minutes at a go. That just happened on its own – when I stopped in front of the Musgroves', Anne was out like a light, and I didn't have the heart to wake her up so I brought her here instead, thinking she'd have a better rest without the disturbances from Mary and the others, given that Louisa could come back in maybe a couple hours or so.

I drift around the living room trying to read the papers and surf the Internet on my laptop, but it's hard to keep my interest on any particular topic when the only thing I can think about is how much I'm dreading the fallout with Louisa and possibly the Musgroves when this whole thing plays to its conclusion. In fact, I'm not even sure whether I'm just fooling myself about Anne still loving me; going after her might just turn out to be kamikaze for all I know. I'd expect her, of all people, to recognize my voice when I called last night, so I don't know what's up with her having to ask who I am. Maybe I might've been reading too much into the "Love, Anne" thing after all.

At around mid-morning, I decide to take a nap; I didn't end up sleeping all that many hours last night, and I'll have to force myself to catch some rest before heading to the airport in order to be properly alert for the long flight tonight. So I dislodge Walter the inflatable rabbit from his usual resting place and put him into Tiffany's bottom bunk, then climb up into my old bunk bed to crash. This act is like a rite of passage for me, to be claiming back my top bunk from Walter at a time when I'm psyching myself up to claim Anne back from the clutches of Walter Elliot as well. As usual, I've got Eminem playing on my iPod; and eventually, the last thing I hear before dozing off is the sound of _Not Afraid_:

_I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid_

_To take a stand, to take a stand_

_Everybody, everybody_

_Come take my hand, come take my hand_

_We'll walk this road together, through the storm_

_Whatever weather, cold or warm_

_Just lettin' you know that you're not alone_

_Holla if you feel like you've been down the same road, same road_

_And I just can't keep living this way_

_So starting today, I'm breaking out of this cage_

_I'm standing up, I'ma face my demons_

_I'm manning up, I'ma hold my ground_

_I've had enough, now I'm so fed up_

_Tryin' to put my life back together right now, now_

* * *

><p><em>Anne<em>

My tour of Fred's room is interrupted by the sound of knocking and yelling; Tiffany's just been dropped off at the doorstep, and Fred's still nowhere to be found. I rush down to open the door and let her in.

"Aunty Annie, where's Uncle Freddy?" she asks, looking around in panic. "And what are you doing here?"

"It's a long story," I tell her. "Come, give me your backpack. Let's get you something to drink, shall we?"

This is the reason why I volunteered so readily to take care of Hetty and Lulu while Charles handled the kids last night; when it's 2 a.m. and I'm functioning on less than two hours of sleep, I just don't have the brain juice to figure out how to explain binge drinking to a kindergartner and his three-year-old brother. It was much easier to bump off that task to their daddy instead; going to Ann Arbor might have been physically and emotionally more taxing, but at least there were clear, well-defined steps that I could simply follow without having to think too much.

But now, it looks like I can't escape from thinking after all; with Fred in hiding, I'm the one who has to devise some appropriate euphemisms to tell Tiffany about last night and demystify his decision to bring me to his house, even if I'm not entirely clear about his reasons myself. I dump Tiffany's water bottle and lunch box in the sink, open the refrigerator to pour her a glass of juice, and plop down with her on the living room sofa before I go about breaking down this long and complicated story into kindergarten terms.

"Charlie's Aunty Lulu got sick," I start. "Did Charlie tell you that yet? So, I had to stay with her in the hospital all night. But it's OK, everything's fine and she'll be coming home today… "

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

Of all the stupid things to do, I forgot to switch off my iPod before falling asleep. So when I wake up, Eminem is the first thing I hear and I glance at my watch – it's 1.30 p.m., which means the school bus would've dropped Tiffany off long ago already. I scramble off the top bunk and make a rush down the stairs, thinking of how scared Tiffany must be, dumped out there on the doorstep alone with nobody to answer the door. I just hope she hasn't run off somewhere else in her panic.

Halfway down the stairs, I stop when I hear Anne's voice; she's apparently beaten me to the door to get Tiffany, and they're now sitting together in the living room.

"This morning, your Uncle Freddy came to the hospital, and when he saw I'd been sitting there all night, he brought me back so I could sleep some," she's saying. "I guess he thought it was what a gentleman should do."

"Aunty Annie, what's a gentleman?" Tiffany asks.

"A gentleman? A gentleman is somebody who never hurts anyone on purpose, in fact, he always thinks about how his actions will affect other people before doing anything. A gentleman keeps all his promises, and he'll do whatever it takes to help his family and friends; he'll even save his enemies if they're really in need. Gentlemen have manners, but you don't measure a gentleman by how handsome he looks or how smoothly he talks – it's about how somebody treats the people around them, not the external appearance that counts. And a gentleman could be rich or poor, it doesn't matter at all. One day, when you're old enough to read the works of Jane Austen, you'll fully understand what a gentleman is."

"Who's Jane Austen?" I'm not surprised that Tiffany seems thoroughly confused; Anne's definition of a gentleman has gone way above kindergarten level.

"She's a lady who wrote some wonderful stories," says Anne. "I'll read them to you sometime, maybe in a few years when you're a little bit older. She lived two hundred years ago, but we can still learn a lot of things about life from her stories today."

"Is Uncle Freddy a gentleman?"

Anne pauses for a long while before answering. "He used to be one, when I used to know him many years ago," she finally says, slowly and hesitantly. And then, after another long pause, "And I suppose he still is one. At least, I hope so."

I've been inching down the stairs while Anne was talking, and she stands up and turns around to face me, somehow having sensed my presence.

"Fred, where were you?" She's calm, ominously so, when she says this, but I can see the glint of accusation in her eyes. "Tiffany was waiting, so I got the door for her."

"Sorry." I can feel myself withering under her steady, reproachful gaze. "I was sleeping, and I forgot the time. I have a flight tonight, so I wanted to catch a quick nap before Tiffany got home."

* * *

><p><em>Anne<em>

Fred winces sheepishly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he tries to justify himself. As he should – if I hadn't been there, God knows how long Tiffany would've been stuck outside before he'd finally get to the door.

"I'm really sorry," he finally mumbles again. "And, well, I couldn't thank you enough for letting Tiffany in on my behalf. It was irresponsible of me. You have every right to be angry, and I guess I deserve it."

"I'm not angry," I say, feeling like a deflated balloon. "Just disappointed."

"Anne, I - " Fred continues shifting around, looking at me and then back down at the floor again. "There's a lot of stuff I want to say to you about… about – everything. Do you think – can we have a chance to talk?"

I'd nearly resigned myself to giving up; after all, much as I'd like to find out Fred's explanation for the whole business with Lulu, I can't possibly initiate a discussion about this without betraying my interest. But when Fred himself offers the opportunity, unexpectedly, I'm not about to say no. Definitely not today, though; I've got to think and rehearse before I can possibly address the matter with any level of composure.

"Yeah," I finally manage to squeeze the words out. "I guess we should … sometime."

Fred seems to perk up a little as he asks, "How about now?"

"Not today." I steel myself and look back at him. "There's something important I want to say to you too, but I just don't have the energy to do it justice, not now. So can we meet some other day to talk instead?"

"OK, if that's what you wish." He's disappointed, I can tell. "My flight's going to be to Amsterdam, and I get back Wednesday evening. I could text you, I guess, after I've landed. We could meet in the airport or something."

"Yeah, I guess that'll work. And I guess I really should be heading home now." Fred follows me as I make my way to the door; I can imagine the hospital would've released Lulu by now, and she and Charles ought to be back at home, which means I should be there too.

Just before I head out the door, I face Fred one last time. "Have a safe flight, OK?"

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

Tiffany's gone up to her room while I was seeing Anne out the door; I can hear her voice carrying all the way down the stairs when I step back into the living room.

"Uncle Freddy! Why is Walter in my bed?" she demands.

"Easy, now. Don't yell, I'm coming." I take the stairs two at a time.

When I get there, Tiffany's waiting for me, hands on hips, demanding an answer. And, surprisingly, I do have one on hand. Because I've made up my mind to stand up for myself, and take initiative at the times when I want to defend my ground.

"Walter's there because you're a big girl now," I say. "And you're old enough to start learning how to sleep in the top bunk. It used to be mine, you know, and I don't give my bunk bed to just anybody. Only to people I like, and you're definitely one of them, aren't you?"

* * *

><p><em>Disclaimer: "Superman" and "Not Afraid" belong to Eminem.<em>


	11. Outed

_Author's Note: First of all, I'd like to give a big thank you to all those of you who've reviewed and supported this story. I love the encouragement! And especially, I'd like to say a very special thank you to cartasdeamor for giving me an idea that's come into this chapter. __Also, let's take a virtual minute of silence to honor the victims of the tragic air race crash in Nevada last Friday. For everyone who was at the scene that day, my heart goes out to you._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 11 – Outed<strong>

_Anne_

"Anne! A-yyy-uuu-nnn-eee! Oh my _God_!" Mary's shrieks are the first greeting I get as I open my front door. Oh, no. Charlie must've been terrorizing Mary with the Kung Fu Panda figurine I'd given him as barter for carrying Flat Freddy, and she's probably going to ream me out for buying it for him.

Actually, it turns out to be worse. Much, much worse. Because as my eyes follow the direction in which Mary's fingers are pointing, there's ... Flat Freddy... propped up in an armchair in the living room...

"Anne... you ... have... a crush... on... Fred_ Wentworth_? Don't you know he's Lulu's _boyfriend_? How could you? How _could_ you?"

With the evidence sitting there staring at me right in the face, it's pretty clear that denial is absolutely futile. You see, ever since Tiffany gave me Flat Freddy, I've developed a new bedtime habit - every night, I take him out of the closet and in my mind, I tell Flat Freddy all the things I'd like to say to Frederick, and then I return him to his home in my closet in the morning. Which is all fine and dandy, except that my late-night excursion to the hospital last night was an unexpected disruption to this little routine; and Mary must've barged into my room this morning. And all this means that I'm massively delinquent in my promise to return Flat Freddy to Tiffany, I've been completely outed, and I feel positively naked.

"Mary, we don't even know that for sure..." I say, and with this valiant but doomed attempt at self-defense, I know exactly how those 300 Spartans who defended Thermopylae must've felt. "That Fred and Lulu are officially dating, that is... and Flat Freddy was a gift to me from Tiffany...and I don't have a crush on Fred... I mean, I do _not_ have a _crush_ on Fred Wentworth... we're just old college buddies, that's all..."

"_What_? Did you say ... Flat ... _Freddy_? You even gave that... thing... a _name_?" Mary's milking every minute of this with the way she exaggerates her expression of incredulity. "And about not having a crush on Fred Wentworth, you can knock it off right this minute. That thing was in your _room_, for God's sake! I thought I was gonna get a heart attack when I saw it! The things you do to me... it's a wonder I didn't _die_ of shock right there and then..."

By this time, Charles, Hetty and the kids have come out to see what's going on and they're just standing there, frozen and dumbfounded; I'm not sure where Lulu is, but if Mary keeps on carrying on in this way, how would it be possible for her not to hear?

"My _room_? You were in my _room_?"

"Of course! What do you expect us to do when you were _missing_ all morning? Where on earth were you?"

"I... I... I was out ... somewhere. Nothing important. And shush. She'll hear. I mean Lulu."

"You went _out_? Leaving us to take care of poor Lulu and poor Charlie all on our own? Wait... _wait_ a minute. Fred Wentworth was supposed to drive you home, wasn't he, Charles? So have you been hanging out with _him_ all this while? With Fred Wentworth? How could you do this to Lulu, poor, poor Lulu?"

"I was out on my own," I lie. "I needed some quiet time to myself. And if you'll excuse me, I'm going out for a walk now. And Lulu can have Flat Freddy if she wants." With that, I make an about-turn and flee out the front door, slamming it hard before I run full speed down the sidewalk away from our house, away from Fred's house, away from everything.

* * *

><p>I keep running until I find a park and plop myself on the curb at the edge of the children's sandbox. Kids, scrawny little boys in oversize T-shirts and bermudas, are messing around on their skateboards, zig-zagging along the asphalt pathway and launching themselves down the half-pipe with varying degrees of proficiency. And I realize that Fred was probably right here, doing exactly the same thing, when he was a little boy more than twenty years ago; he spent his childhood in Plymouth after all, and he used to boast that he'd been to every single skate park in the whole of metro Detroit by the time he finished elementary school.<p>

There are so many things I want to say to Fred, and the stuff I've ended up actually saying is only the very tip of the entire iceberg. And not all of it is bad - for starters, I want to tell him how proud I am of him for sacrificing his successful Air Force career all for the love of his sister and her precious little girl. To congratulate him on what a wonderful job he's doing in raising Tiffany, because I know firsthand how tough it is to bring up children in this day and age when they're exposed to so much media, marketing and technology; it's an uphill challenge to build up the right values in them when they're tempted by the promise of instant gratification at every turn. Yet Fred's managed to pull this off successfully with Tiffany in a way that's vintage Fred – by being a living model of how a person can be decent – more than decent, most of the time anyway – yet extremely fun all at the same time. He's Tiffany's swashbuckling hero, and so on the occasions when he does have to put his foot down, she's happy to do anything to please him; and the more time Charlie and Wally spend at Fred's house, the more they're getting to be that way too. And yes, I want to say thank you to Fred for helping me, because I now realize that that's exactly what he's doing; he's trying to give me some time to myself by sharing my babysitting duties, while also acting as a role model for Charlie and Wally. That's something I could've said, should've said, if I hadn't been so embarrassed about confronting him over the whole "Coach" thing in the first place.

I want to tell Fred about how I've kept track of every single milestone of his Air Force career, at least every one that he was at liberty to disclose to Tom and James, because I always catch up with my college girlfriends on the phone, Skype or GTalk every time after they meet up with the guys. That his performances with the Thunderbirds were spectacular and mesmerizing; and that if his aerobatics stint was the pinnacle of his prowess with the F-16, I felt honored to have witnessed it. I want to whisper to him that everything, all that I've sacrificed, it was all for the sake of his dreams, and so even if it was bittersweet for me, it was intensely gratifying to know that he brought those dreams to fruition in the end. Selfishly, I want to ask him whether he ever thought about me all these years, whether he ever asked how I was doing, and in my imagination, he does ask so that I can give him the answer: I'm doing fine. That's the answer I'll always give him, because that's what I want him to believe. Because, in my dreams, Fred won't be fine until he's made sure that I'm doing fine first.

Most of all, I want to remind him of the prodigy I saw in him; how he could achieve just about anything he set out to do, and dazzle the whole world while he was doing it. Of the core of integrity that stood behind all the fun, all the jokes, and all the swagger; that core which formed the basis of all my respect for him. Of how I hope that Fred will one day see that this is what he used to be, and strive to reach those heights again; I know that he can definitely do it since he's been there before. And because Messi, my idol, is all of these things too, using the example of Messi was the most powerful way I could think of tell Fred how magical he was - is, I mean, I hope - to me. So this is what I said to him, and even though it's only just the tip of the iceberg, to me it's the most important part of all of the above. All that's left to do is to cross my fingers, and hope he gets it in the end.

* * *

><p>As the sunlight wanes and the kids at the park pick up their skateboards, trudging off one by one, I know it's time for me to start heading home to dinner, too. In fact, I'm actually late already; but when I slip into my seat at the dinner table, nobody makes any comment about my tardiness because Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove are preoccupied with something else.<p>

"You've breached our trust in you, you know that?" Mr. Musgrove is saying to a tearful Hetty.

"All we ever wanted was for you kids to enjoy being young in a way that we never had a chance to ourselves," chips in Mrs. Musgrove. "Your dad's right; we placed a lot of trust in you to do the right thing and gave you a lot of freedom, but this incident shows you haven't exercised your freedom in a responsible way. Didn't we talk about this before you went to college? Didn't we tell you how dangerous it is to get drunk on your own on campus?"

"But Mom, _everybody's_ doing it," Hetty protests. "And anyway, I stayed off the vodka because Lulu was drinking it. Remember, you told us it'd be so easy for somebody to just cart us off if we both got drunk, right? So we agreed we'd take turns to do the hard drinks and I stuck with just beer and wine at that party, just in case."

"You know, I used to feel that way too," I say quietly. "That everyone else was doing it, I mean. For me, it was the time when I was having my meals at a co-ed frat house during summer school my first year at college. There was one night when everyone was passing a joint of pot around, and it took all my willpower to keep myself from taking a puff. But I didn't, and I was a stronger person because of it."

"Anne, you're different. You're a _nerd_," Hetty says derisively, and then looks down into her lap in contrition. "Sorry. I didn't really mean that. But what about Freddie Wentworth? Was he there when that happened? And did he do those kinds of stuff? Drinking, pot, you know?"

"No, he wasn't," I say. "That summer, he was in Texas taking flying lessons. But anyway, he was always very strict with himself about these kinds of things. He knew he had to be that way, if he wanted to be a fighter pilot when he graduated." And I think to myself, _of course we had some social drinks once in a blue moon, but only one drink a night and only after we turned 21; and the biggest motivation for me to regulate myself was that I didn't want to tempt Fred_.

"Freddie didn't drink in college? That's really hard to believe. He's so cool. And you worship him, right? You even made an _effigy_ of him. Besides, I'm sure lots of other people drink in college. Charles, I'm sure you did, didn't you?"

"Of course Charles drinks," says Mary, even though there's no way she could've known since Charles was done with college before they started going out. "_Everybody_ does. But the trick is, you've gotta know when to stop; you don't drink yourself to _death_, and _that's_ the real deal here."

"Mary, shush," says Charles. "Yeah, I did drink a little, that's right. But moderation, that's the key. And, legally at least, you're not supposed to be drinking till you're 21," he adds, but with a wink at me, because we both know the reality - that to most college students, this is purely an academic point anyway.

"And for the record, I did not make an effigy of Frederick Wentworth," I point out. "Flat Freddy" – Hetty stifles a snigger – "was a gift from Tiffany, over the summer. Fred and I were friends in college, but Tiffany doesn't know that. And that's all there is to it."

"What's a ef-fi-gy?" asks Charlie, looking up from the iPad that he and Wally are playing with.

"It's another word for a kind of doll," I say, just as Mary butts in with, "And don't you dare try binge drinking when you're in college!"

"What's binge drinking?" Oh, my God, not again. This one will have to be for Charles to answer, thank you.

* * *

><p>After dinner, I drop into Lulu's room to check on her; although she's awake now, she'd stayed in bed all day and refused to come to the dinner table. From the looks of it, she's been spending most of the day crying; even now, her cheeks are still wet with fresh tears.<p>

"Anne, tell me the truth," she says, pulling herself up to lean against the pillows as I sit on the edge of her bed. "You like Freddie, don't you?"

"Yes, in a way. But purely as a friend. We - he and I - were friends in college, but after graduation - he and I - lost touch. And I hadn't heard from him in ten years, not until he moved back to Detroit. These days, I hardly know if he's still the same person as he used to be," I finish lamely; never before has it been quite so unwieldy to avoid using the word "we" in a sentence.

"Really? You were friends, just like that? Mary doesn't think so. Hetty doesn't think so. And I don't think so. But I thought - I believed - _I'm_ the one he likes, right? Charles said he came to see me in the morning, but he only stayed a little while. Why didn't he stay longer?"

"Because he had to work," I say matter-of-factly. "He had to prepare for his flight to Amsterdam, which departs tonight."

"OK, but couldn't he just call me, at least? He texted Charles this afternoon, to ask if I was OK or something like that. That's what Charles told me, at least. But he has my number, doesn't he? Oh, I just wish he'd call. I want to hear his voice."

"Well, maybe he just didn't want to disturb you. You need your rest after all, and you should be trying to get some sleep. Have an early night, yeah?"

"OK." Lulu scoots back down and curls up again. "But can you take that... um... _likeness_ of him away? Please? It just makes me feel worse looking at it if he doesn't call."

Lulu shifts restlessly as I pick up Flat Freddy from where he's propped up against Lulu's wall opposite the bed.

"Anne?"

"Yeah?"

"How do you know where Freddie's gone to?"

"He mentioned it to Charles and me when he came to see you, that's all." OK, so this is a white lie. But people don't burn in hell for lies that don't hurt anybody, right? "Don't think too much about it. And good night." I go up to her bedside and smooth her hair one last time, before leaving the room and closing the door as softly as I can.

* * *

><p>Charles is waiting outside when I come out of Lulu's room; he's got a confidential air about him as he leads me a little ways down the hallway.<p>

"I didn't want to say this in front of Mary and Hetty, but I thought you'd want to know," he says softly. "Fred texted me today to ask about Lulu's condition, and he asked about you as well. In fact, he specifically told me to take care of you, to make sure you weren't too tired or traumatized by last night's incident."

"He did?" This is absolutely news to me, and together with Lulu's information, it brings a completely new angle to the entire situation.

"Yeah. But I didn't tell Lulu that part of it. That was on purpose. Because you know what? I spoke to Fred today about him and Lulu, and he promised me he'd take care of her as a friend and big brother. I didn't believe him then, but now it's starting to make a little more sense. The only thing is, I'm not sure if Lulu's in a frame of mind to be able to take it."

"Thanks, Charles." I give him a sisterly hug. "Thanks so much for telling me."

* * *

><p>I decide to return Flat Freddy to Sophie on Tuesday morning before going to work; briefly, I toy with the idea of draping a black trash bag over him to conceal his identity during the short walk to Sophie's house, but it seems like a bad omen so I settle for carrying him with his face turned inwards instead.<p>

Sophie's reaction to the whole business of Flat Freddy is a welcome contrast to what's been going on at home - there's no drama, no conjecture, no nosiness, and no hysteria. She just spends a few moments taking in my entire crestfallen countenance as she receives Flat Freddy from me, and then she hugs me with the arm that's not holding on to his stick.

"I'd like to tell you just two things," she says. "Number one: we never told Fred about Tiffany giving you Flat Freddy. And he hasn't asked about it, so he might not have noticed at all. And number two: Fred never asked Louisa Musgrove on any dates, not even once. And that's why I was so concerned all along about him making things clear to her. But you've given him a hint, haven't you? Fred's not dumb; he's capable of getting it for sure. The only question is whether he _wants_ to get it or not. And like you, I hope he does."

* * *

><p>Lulu's finally emerged from her room; she's there at the dinner table on Tuesday evening but Hetty isn't, because her dad took her back to campus in the morning, telling her that she should be catching up with school after having cut an entire day of classes already.<p>

"He _still_ isn't calling me," says Lulu fretfully, fiddling around with the food on her plate.

"Honey, he's travelling," sooths Mrs. Musgrove. "You told me he was flying to Amsterdam, right? And with the time difference and the cost, it'd be inconvenient and expensive for him to call you long-distance like that."

"But he _likes_ me. And that's what guys do with girls they like. They call, no matter how much it costs. Besides, he can afford it for sure; he's got lots of money."

"Well, I'm not so sure about that," says Charles. "I mean, sure, he's earning a salary, but aren't we all? One thing I learned after I started working at the garage is that money doesn't come easy; and once we have it, we don't throw it away so easily either. And besides, it's not as if he hasn't checked in with us at all; didn't I tell you he texted me again today?"

I know there's still one more loophole to this entire line of reasoning - if Fred had really wanted to call Lulu, it wouldn't be that difficult or costly to accomplish; he could've just texted her to meet him on Skype or something like that. But everybody's not saying this, and so I'm not either.

"Lulu, hon, tell me something," says Mrs. Musgrove. "Did Frederick Wentworth ever ask you out on a single date? One to one?"

Lulu plays around with her food for a long time before mumbling, "No."

"Did he ever hold your hand?"

"Yeah, um - I mean -"

"I'm not talking about _you_ holding _his_ hand. Did _he_ ever hold _your_ hand? Or kiss you?"

Lulu silently shakes her head, looking down at her plate the whole time.

"So, is that the way a boyfriend treats his girlfriend? Has he ever behaved as a boyfriend to you?"

Lulu pauses, head hung, for a very long while before she mumbles, "No, Mom."

"Darling," Mrs. Musgrove looks at Lulu sympathetically. "I knew it all along, but I thought it'd be less painful if you got over it yourself and moved on, rather than for me to point it out to you. Didn't you think your dad and I would be worried if he was really going after you, when he's so much older and all? You'll find someone at college, someone your age, and then you'll get over this soon enough."

"I know, Mom. But it doesn't make any difference to how I feel right now. I feel horrible. Can I go back to my room?" Lulu gets up and slinks away from the table, shoulders hunched in defeat. And relieved as I am to finally have an answer that reconciles the whole situation about Fred and Lulu with his integrity, I also feel very sorry for her.

* * *

><p>"Aunty Annie, I want you to tuck me in tonight," proclaims Charlie at the end of dinnertime. "Not Mommy."<p>

"Charlie, don't you love your poor mommy anymore?" protests Mary, making a face; bedtime is always her sacred time where she smothers the boys with hugs, kisses and cooing, after Charles or I have gotten them bathed and into their p.j.'s.

"I love you, Mommy. But there's something I want to ask Aunty Annie and I can't ask you."

"It's OK, Mary," I say. "After I talk to him, you can come in and kiss him goodnight. That'll be OK with you, right, Charlie?" He nods.

"Aunty Annie, what's 'in love' mean?" Charlie asks when I tuck him into bed.

"Why? How did you know about the words 'in love'?" I want to tell him he's way too young to be discussing topics like love, but I bite the words off at the tip of my tongue; I'm not going to start being his grandma, I'm still too young for that.

"Because Mommy said you're in love with Coach." I don't get it at all, how Charlie can look so perfectly innocent while saying things like this.

"Well, people fall in love when a boy likes a girl, and the girl likes the boy back. When they like each other very, very much. Enough to spend the rest of their lives together."

"So I'm in love with Tiffany, right? Because she's my best friend, but Coach's not your best friend. So if you're in love with Coach, I'm in love with Tiffany."

"Charlie, you're too young to be in love. That's for grown-ups. And I'm not in love with Uncle Freddy."

"Gotcha," Charlie flops onto his pillow with a satisfied grin. "Coach said we can't call him 'Uncle Freddy' 'cause he's not our uncle. But if you marry him, _then_ he'll be our 'Uncle Freddy'. And people marry when they're in love, right? First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a golden carriage."

"Who taught you how to say that?"

"Aunty Hetty and Aunty Lulu taught me. They told me Daddy married Mommy 'cause he loves her. And Tiffany told me she'll marry me, too. I asked her."

"You didn't! Anyway, you won't be old enough to marry anybody for many, many years. Can I bring Mommy in to say good night now?"

Mary's waiting outside already when I open the door, and I'm not sure how much of our conversation she might've heard. What I definitely don't expect, though, is for her to give me an apology.

"Anne, I'm _so_ sorry I said all those things about you having a crush on Fred Wentworth. Charles told me your story today, and, well, I never knew. About the stuff that happened between you and Fred Wentworth, that is. And that's why I'm sorry."

"Me? My story? What did Charles say?" As far as I know, Charles' level of information is that Fred isn't in love with Lulu, and that he was concerned enough about me to ask after me in his text. And that's it. But _the stuff that happened_ between Fred and me? That's pushing things a little, isn't it?

"Ooops!" Mary puts a hand to her mouth. "Charles told me not to say a word about it in front of Lulu, or to y- ... Sorry," she trails off.

"It's OK. And I'm not going to deny that yeah, some stuff did happen between Frederick and me, way long ago. But please don't talk about it to anyone else, OK? Because there's nothing to talk about, really; all that's been over and done with for more than ten years. It's ancient history. And that's all that I'm gonna say about it."

* * *

><p><em>About the stuff that happened between you and Fred<em>... That's not like Charles at all, to gossip and extrapolate; and ever since the summer of '97, I've never breathed a single word about Fred and me to anyone with the last names of Elliot, Stevenson or Musgrove. And I trust Charles; I know he won't spread stories about me to Mary, or to anyone else. But the mystery solves itself when Charles waylays me by the door as I get ready for work on Wednesday morning.

"Anne? Before you go, I just wanted to explain something. Mary spoke to you last night, didn't she?"

"Yeah. She said something about knowing my story. About Fred Wentworth and me. But there's no Fred and me; there hasn't been for years. It's exactly as I told her."

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry I didn't speak to you first before she got to you. You see, after the whole hoo-ha about that Flat Freddy and all, I went to check up the ownership of that car you've been keeping in our garage. It's him, right? He's the boyfriend you had all those years ago when I asked you to be my girlfriend and you said no. And I told Mary, so she'd stop carrying on to everybody who'd listen about how you were having a crush on Fred, and I told her not to say anything in front of Lulu or you. But apparently she's taken my instructions a little too literally, because she yammered about it to the kids all day yesterday. Sorry about that." The look Charles gives me is full of sympathy and understanding.

"Well, that's true," I tell Charles. "It was him. But whatever happened was over a decade ago, and there's nothing new going on right now. If anyone's speculating about us – Fred and me, that is – please make sure they understand that."

"Sure. I'll do that. Word of honor."

"And Charles, you know what?" I say as I step out the door. "You're the best brother I ever could ever have. Thank you."

* * *

><p><em>Chapter afternote: At this point, I'd like to do a little sharing about some of the thoughts behind the imagery, themes and metaphors within this story, just to share with you why it means so much to me to do this.<em>

_**Parallels of modern Wentworth** - I wanted to conceptualize Wentworth from ground up with a tight reference to canon, and ended up with multiple parallels that each convey a different character's perspective towards him:  
>Harvard Hottie  Captain America / Cedric Diggory - this is the hunky guy, the veritable teen idol that Henrietta and Louisa have a crush on  
>Lionel Messi - this is the boy prodigy with amazing, spectacular talent combined with impeccable personal values, that Anne sees<br>Slim Shady - this is the outrageous, dangerous and crude exterior signifying the stereotypes that the Elliots have about Wentworth's character. Slim Shady is a fictional alter ego, created for maximum shock value, which Eminem rapped under especially in his early years, and the real-life controversy amongst adults, especially parents, about Slim Shady's lyrics symbolizes the Elliots' fear and objection to Wentworth.  
>Marshall Mathers  Eminem - this is Frederick Wentworth's perception of himself, as a guy who's grown up in a tough environment and is trying to weather his tough life as best as he can with resilience  
>And lastly, Sophia sees how the entities of Slim Shady  Marshall Mathers / Eminem interact in Frederick, because she's known him all his life; and Anne is also starting to see it too.  
>There will be yet another new parallel to modern Wentworth coming up in the next chapter, representing the mature Anne's view of him, so stay tuned!<em>

_**Detroit as the setting**- On a plot level, I found that metro Detroit was the perfect place to set this story because of its sheer diversity: there's a community of the traditional wealthy (Grosse Pointe), urban slums, middle-class suburbs, and an aviation hub. But I also found that the splendor in Detroit's urban decay, as well as the pride of Big 3 auto in the midst of their declining market position, was the perfect analogy to the splendid decline of the Elliots' position in society: [.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1882089,]_

_**Aviation as a theme**- I felt that the daring, pioneering spirit of 20th century aviation captures not only Wentworth's daring, but also the shared dreams and idealism of the young Frederick and Anne. This story is also a vehicle to share a little bit the magic that makes aviation so sexy and seductive to industry insiders and enthusiasts._

_**Links to canon**- Every happening in the story, down to the detailed nuances sometimes, is a link to a little detail in canon; sometimes poking fun at it, and sometimes trying to put a different, contemporary spin to the spirit of it (e.g. the "Eminem" section vs. the description of Lady Russell's views of young Wentworth). I've mixed 'em, though, so the nods to canon don't necessarily appear in sequence!_

_**Crossover fanfic with Pink Floyd's song Learning to Fly** - This little couplet of fics are intended to pay tribute to both Persuasion and the 1987 song by Pink Floyd, Learning to Fly. This is why the two story titles are deliberately taken from the song lyrics, and the song itself (and flying pig representing Pink Floyd) are recurring motifs that appear at critical points in the story._  
><em>The song is here - [.comwatch?v=HIIUGdaD-qA]_

_**References to pop culture and current events** - All song references are intentional, designed to create a "virtual soundtrack" to the story, complete with visual cues (from the MTVs) which help in visualizing the characters through my eyes. The references are also intended to convey a concrete sense of time and era for the story; a portrait of contemporary life especially as seen by the 30-somethings of today. The two-way commentary from my parallels to actual current events and personalities are also deliberate; I'm drawing parallels from events in Persuasion to modern life, but also using that modern event itself to provide a perspective to interpret the corresponding event in Persuasion._

_Lastly, the main message in the "Austen Gentleman" chapter is that there might just be an Austen gentleman hiding in that regular Joe, the guy in your life. The guy who just doesn't get what you say half the time, who slumps in front of the TV watching football or South Park and listens to Eminem, whom you think of as a Neanderthal sometimes, and who forgets to answer the door every once in a while. If he's helping to make your life easier in little ways, never mind that it's done with the minimum of fuss and fanfare, and if he's willing to do the right thing by his family and face up to his mistakes with courage and integrity, then he's an Austen gentleman - yourAusten gentleman._

_And as I wrote this story, I realized that there is a Wentworth in my life after all: my late dad. Dad, this story is for you, and I love you always._


	12. Sensitivity

**Chapter 12 – Sensitivity**

_Anne_

_Ten years down the road, I don't know where this model is going to be. Maybe it'll be sitting on a bookshelf in the living room, and maybe by then, hopefully, I'll be sharing that living room with you. Or maybe it'll be on your desk in your corner office at Boeing…_ That was from the note Fred gave me together with the TriStar model, but where it's sitting today, more than ten years from that day, is neither of the above. It's taking pride of place at my desk in my cubicle, at my office at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. I may not be in a corner office yet, may not have attained the lofty heights that Fred believed I could reach; but nonetheless, this gift is still the best one Fred has ever given me. Because it's not just a symbol of how, on the threshold of graduation, we wanted to hang on to our life together, carrying it from our past into our future; it also shows how Fred remembered every single little thing about me. The Delta Airlines Lockheed TriStar is a symbol of my roots, how my entire love affair with aviation began; I'd first told him the story during freshman year, and this gift shows how the story still resonated with him even at the end of our college career.

It was 1989, and I was ten going on eleven, when Father brought all of us to Disneyland during spring break. Father likes to travel in style, but we've never been in the league that could afford the expense of a proper private jet. We've got a Beechcraft King Air propeller plane christened _Kellynch_ to satisfy Father's pretensions to the jet set*, but that's a separate story altogether and she doesn't have the range to make trips across or out of the country. So most of the time, we flew on first or business class for our family holidays. That particular trip was the first time I really became aware of aircraft types; Liz and Mary were squabbling, as usual, about where they wanted to sit, and Grandma said something about the airplane being "a DC-10". While all of them were yammering away, I picked up the safety card in one of the seat pockets and read the name on the top: _Lockheed L-1011-500 TriStar_. That was when I first became aware that the DC-10 and the L-1011** were somehow the same and yet somehow different, and it sparked my curiosity to find out how and why it was so.

A few months later in the summer of '89, a United Airlines DC-10 crashed in Sioux City***, and one day after school while I was rooting through Grandma's stack of _Good Housekeeping _magazines for want of something to do, I came across an intensely vivid and personal account by one of the crash survivors. That was the second time that year that I'd come across the term "DC-10" and it awakened my curiosity yet again; it was a reminder of how fragile the magic that keeps a heavy jetliner in the air actually is, and it made me want to find out more about the secrets hidden behind that magic; secrets which could actually save lives at times. These were the days before the Internet, and the information I found in Father's encyclopedia and the school library was woefully inadequate to answer all my questions. But the dearth of easily available answers didn't stop me from looking and asking every time we went to the airport, noticing the tiny differences between different types of airplanes and documenting them in my drawings.

My big epiphany came the summer I was sixteen, when Charles and I worked at the main office of the Musgroves' flagship garage outlet helping Mr. Musgrove to file papers and run office errands; Father and Grandma would've hit the roof if they knew, but we never told them. We made friends with everybody there ranging from the managers to the mechanics; and when I showed them some of the drawings I'd made, they'd told me that I ought to seriously consider going to engineering school. And that's how I ended up deciding to major in aerospace engineering at MIT.

Let's fast-forward now to fall '97: Father had spoken to me once during my summer visit home, telling me to end my "fling" with Fred, and I'd thought he was done with that; until the day he beckoned me out of my room as I was packing my bags to go back to college.

"Anne, there's one thing I want you to remember," he'd said. "You are a representative of the Elliot name and the Elliot reputation, and that means I do not want to hear of you consorting with that young punk, or any other of his kind, again. If you choose a man outside of our sphere, you will not be entitled to any of your inheritance. And all this is for your own good; it's to protect you, and to protect the Elliot family. I, Walter Elliot, am never going to allow anyone to take advantage of the Elliot family through my daughters like that."

Well, that may have been Father's stance about the whole matter, but the prospect of disinheritance didn't faze me at all. Wasn't it exactly the same when he refused to finance anything other than a liberal arts education for me and I took a scholarship to put myself through engineering school? By the time I started going out with Fred, I'd already experienced what it was like to be virtually disinherited before, and so the thought of Father cutting me off financially couldn't scare me again.

Two days ago, I was nervous at the thought of talking to Fred. Everything was so confusing, and everything was happening so fast. Previously, I'd thought he couldn't have feelings for Lulu and then it'd appeared as if he might. And as for me, throughout the spring and summer he'd been acting as if he could never see me as anything more than an acquaintance, or at most, a friend; only for me to find out now, in the fall, that he has actually kept and treasured the mementoes of our past in the same way as I have. But the past two days of revelation where all the secrets, Lulu's and mine, were systematically outed to our entire family have put paid to that confusion once and for all. It's a huge consolation to know that Fred's basic integrity is largely intact; and on top of that, I dare to entertain the hope that tonight might be the starting point for my TriStar to finally get to one of the places Fred mentioned in his note from so long ago. I guess I don't have to say it for you to know which one I'm talking about; it can't possibly be the corner office since I'm not at Boeing anymore.

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

_I'm coming home, I'm coming home_

_Tell the world I'm coming home_

_Let the rain wash away_

_All the pain of yesterday _

_I know my kingdom awaits_

_And they've forgiven my mistakes_

_I'm coming home, I'm coming home_

_Tell the world that I'm coming home_

If I am not hip-hop, then I'm just not Frederick. I'm making no secret of the fact that my upbringing has been more "Ordinary Man" than "Renaissance Man", and that hip-hop is the beat to which I grew up; it's the most confessional genre of music there is, and it's the heartbeat and mirror of life in the 'hood. Life in the 'hood and out of it, in fact; because I'm the same Frederick Wentworth whether I'm living in Plymouth or 8 Mile Road or MIT or Texas or in the Middle East; the same Frederick Wentworth who's got Anne Elliot as the love of his life, forever and ever.

_I know my kingdom awaits, and they've forgiven my mistakes_. This is the wild card in it all, isn't it? Because Anne has hinted to me that I'm not the Messi she used to think I was anymore, and one of the last things she said to me before we parted ways on Monday was that she's disappointed with me. I don't know where exactly I came across the phrase "half agony, half hope", but for some funny reason it sounds really familiar; and I certainly feel a little like that right now. P. Diddy's got the antidote, though: "It's time to make your house your own, pick up your phone, come on!" And so I pick up my phone to text Anne, to tell her I'm waiting for her at the airside Starbucks café at the McNamara Terminal. When I moved back to Detroit, I came home to Sophia and Tiffany; now, I'm coming home to Anne as well.

* * *

><p><em>Anne<em>

I used to dream about this moment, time and time again; the moment when Fred and I would make peace with the circumstances under which we parted ways. In my dreams, sometimes we'd get back together again as a couple, and sometimes we'd end up living separate lives but remain as friends. But no matter what the final outcome, every single one of my dreams of Fred was populated by the same common thread: he'd acknowledge that despite our bitter breakup in '01, he had no hard feelings with respect to me all the same; and I'd be overcome by a surge of wild relief and joy at that moment of forgiveness.

It's been practically a wasted day for me at the office today; for the most part I've been distracted with wondering how this moment, the moment of my dreams, would play out exactly. And when I make my first tentative steps into Starbucks, I find, ecstatically, that there's one little detail about the real Fred who's waiting for me there that I never dared to envisage in my dreams – he still remembers every little thing about me, even down to the frap I used to like in college, and to leave off on the whipped cream. And he's taking this meeting absolutely seriously, to the point of reverence; it's evident in the way he pulls out my chair and faces me, making sure he's looking me in the eye, before he launches into what he has to say.

"Anne," says Fred, "I just wanted to say… thank you. And that I'm sorry for letting you down. Because you did it all for my sake, didn't you? When you… wished me well… and said we'd always be friends… all along, the only thing you wanted was not to add your problems on to mine, right? And if I'd stuck around, just stuck around and waited it out with you -"

In all my dreams about this moment, "sorry" was the magic word that I'd secretly yearned for but never got to hear; even subconsciously, I knew I didn't deserve to hear it. Deep down inside, I'd always known the breakup was entirely my own doing, my own fault; if I hadn't insisted on walking away from him, he'd never have walked away from me in return. Still, I couldn't help feeling angry at times during the years we were apart; not at Fred, but at the circumstances. At the unfairness of how the double whammy of Grandma's illness and disapproval made it impossible, in my eyes at least, for us to stay together. Just hearing Fred say the words "thank you" and "sorry" washes away all my anger and bitterness about the situation, just as it washes away all my residual feelings of tension with Fred too. It's as if we rewound our lives by eleven years, and we're meeting each other back again right at the exact same place where we left off, in that Detroit hotel room in the summer of '01.

"Fred, you don't have to say sorry for anything because none of it was your fault, not at all." My sense of conviction grows as I speak; the one thing I can do for Fred is to also try to take away the hurt I inflicted on him that fateful day; the years of hurt that I've inflicted on myself too. "When I walked away from you that day, it was the hardest decision I ever had to make. But at the time, I was… waiting for a time when we could be together, and at the same time hoping Grandma would stay with me for as long as possible… I just couldn't stand being torn in two directions like that, and… well, whatever I had to do… I guess it wasn't fair to you, but I just couldn't see any other way out. I was young, I guess. I was young, and maybe a little stupid."

Talking about that day in '01 brings all the pain vividly back to life again; I swipe at my eyes with my sleeve, vaguely conscious that I'm probably an unseemly mess of snot and tears by now. I'm ruining my best business suit jacket, but that's just a secondary point to me right now; money can buy me a set of new work clothes if I need them, but nothing, not even the most heartfelt of apologies and reparations, can ever buy forgiveness. It has to be granted; and now that it's been granted to me, I'll make sure I earn it by treating Fred as well as possible in the future, in whatever capacity I can; I will, every single inch of the way.

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

To me, Anne isn't the one who was stupid that day; she might've been young, too young for the level of responsibility thrust upon her, but she faced up to it with much more courage than I showed in walking away from her. I hand her a paper napkin to dry her tears with as I confess to her my sorry tale of doubt and insecurity; thick-headed as I am, it took me eleven long years to figure out that everything that's happened was actually my fault, not hers as I'd used to believe.

"You weren't stupid," I tell her. "You were brave where I wasn't, and I can't forgive myself for being so unfair to you. I knew you were feeling terrible about your grandma, you had to be, but I didn't have the guts to look for you and try to talk things out with you one more time. I cared, of course I cared – but I was weak and cowardly, I guess. After all, what'd be the worst case scenario if I called you? If you'd really wanted me out of your life once and for all, you'd have told me, and I'd have to take it like a man and move on, and that'd be it. Remember all the times you used to tease me, telling me I've got an ego the size of Mount Everest? Well, I guess you're right after all.

"And I guess after we'd known each other for so many years, I should've trusted you more, should've known you didn't really mean half those things you said to me. Maybe if it had happened at some other time, things might've been different. But right after graduation, everything was changing so quickly. It was so easy to believe we could be together, living as equals, when we were on campus. But when I went for UPT and saw those guys who were married and how they lived, it really hit home to me that I was asking a lot from you. That kind of life isn't for everyone, and some of those pilots' wives, they grew up with a lot less luxury than you did and they still found it hard getting used to all the restrictions of living on a military base. So when you said you'd moved home to Grosse Pointe, and I didn't even know when that happened, I guess I just assumed the worst."

Everything just spills out of me as if I'm sitting in a confessional booth; I see Anne shaking her head slightly as I speak of my doubts of her ability to adapt to military life, and it just tells me how much of an idiot I'd been to let my own feelings of inferiority take precedence over my knowledge of her character. Anne had never been the type of girl to act precious in all the years I'd been with her; so why should things be any different just because we'd graduated and gone out into the world? I don't deserve her unconditional forgiveness and I shouldn't be making excuses for what I did to her, but I still can't help asking the question, a question I really ought to know the answer to without even asking. I should know; but I still ask anyway, because there's nothing I want more than to hear the answer from Anne herself:

"I still kinda hoped we could get back together, and I guess I was waiting for the chance to come back and comfort you. But I didn't think I could take it if you kicked me out again, and so I asked Tom and James to test water instead, to try to find out about you so I could come if you wanted me back. But if I'd come back myself, if I hadn't been hiding behind our friends, if I'd just planted myself there and stuck by you instead – if that had happened, would you have stuck with me too?"

"_Would_ I!" From the way Anne places emphasis on the word "would", she needn't say more than that for me to understand her meaning, but she does anyway. "Of course I would. I'd never have the heart to turn you away."

"Then it's such a pity," I say; I'd deduced this already, but now that it's being told right to my face, the eleven years of hindsight and regret that unfold in front of me are clearer than ever before. "We wasted so many years being unhappy, and, well, I just want to make up for being so angry, for resenting you the way I did when all along you never deserved it, if it isn't too late for me to make up for it now.

"I know our lives would've still been far from perfect, even if we'd stuck together the first time around. Back when I first started pilot training, I never thought I'd end up fighting in an actual war; all I wanted was to be flying the fastest, most advanced aircraft around, and the more I learned about aeronautics, the more seductive that idea was. Can you beat that? How naïve I was? It's funny, isn't it, how your perspective changes as you grow older; Vietnam happened just a few years before we were born, but it used to feel like it was so long ago, the kind of stuff we learned about in high school history class or something. So with 9-11 and all that, if I'd stuck with you, then it wouldn't be just you adding your problems to me; I'd be adding my problems to you too.

"But you know what? Maybe I'm being selfish, but I still think the past eleven years would've been much happier for both of us if only we'd stuck together. We'd still have gone through the wringer anyway, but at least we'd have each other. We'd have been there for each other when we were going through all that stuff, instead of feeling alone like we did, and ending up as we are now, with, well, eleven years of baggage."

All these years, the wasted ones, Anne's probably had to dry her own tears too many times already; and as I speak, she reaches out to take another paper napkin from the table. Not any more, though; I edge sideways, shifting my chair closer to hers, and pick up one of the paper napkins myself. From now on, I'm going to be the one to dry her tears; I'll swear on it, word of honor.

* * *

><p><em>Anne<em>

_Eleven wasted years_. That's exactly what it was – eleven wasted years, for Fred and for me. When I made my decision to walk out on Fred and subsequently to stay away, I'd always imagined him having a happy life; that he'd find somebody else, someone who was at liberty to follow him while he chased his dreams and who wouldn't tie him down with family or financial problems. Little did I know that those eleven years were just as lonely for Fred as they were for me; if he hadn't come back to Detroit, I'd never have learned that my ten years of suffering prior to that were matched by ten reciprocal years of loneliness and misery on Fred's end as well.

"Yeah, you're right," I tell him. "And I see it now, in a way I couldn't have when I was younger. You see, at that age, I still believed in 'happily ever after', and I believed I was setting you free, creating a 'happily ever after' for you. I believed you'd have no trouble finding somebody; part of the reason why I stayed away, even after Grandma's passing, was because I wanted to leave you the chance of finding a girl who wouldn't tie you down the way I would. Because 'happily ever after' is supposed to be perfect, and I couldn't give you that; I couldn't give you the perfect happy life you deserved."

"And how about now?" asks Fred as he gently swipes away my tears. "You don't believe in 'happily ever after' anymore?"

"Actually, I do." In spite of myself, I manage a small smile. "I just believe in a different kind of 'happily ever after', that's all. I believe we each get to write our own 'happily ever afters'; even though life will never be totally perfect, it's up to us to figure out what's most important to ourselves, and how to shape that into our future in a way that's attainable. And for me, what's most important to me now is that I can finally be there for you in the way I've always wanted to be. We're friends again, aren't we? I mean, best friends; the best friends we could ever be in the world? Will you give me a chance; give us a chance, I mean; can we pick up from where we left off the last time? "

I don't really mean just "best friends", of course, but it's a start; what I'm trying to ask Fred, garbling myself because I don't want to risk asking for more than I deserve, is for a second chance to be a part of each other's lives again; a second chance for us to be the whole world to each other again, in fact. Because even if I haven't been the whole world to him, I just can't deny that, deep down in my subconscious, he's been the whole world to me all along.

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

_Best friends_. At one level, that's what your partner is supposed to be; it just isn't possible to be a good partner to somebody who isn't your best friend as well. But what Anne and I had was way beyond that; it's indescribable, but the closest I can get to describing it, maybe, is that I'll never forget those years I was with Anne, when I felt as if I belonged to somebody even when my family was so far away. I suppose taking baby steps is the cautious thing to do when we've been apart for so many years, but if I take into account that I'd never lost Anne's support in all these years, that all the sacrifices she made were solely for my sake, then maybe the reality is that we've always been together, at least in spirit; and if that's the case, then there's nothing stopping us from being together again, in exactly the same way we used to be.

"Of course we can," I assure her, and then I barrel on, spilling out all these thoughts to her. "Even when I couldn't see it, you were still my best friend in the world, weren't you? Actually, if we want to pick up exactly where we left off the last time, we're more than best friends, way more than that. Remember what you said to me about Tiger Woods? It's funny, but the first thing I thought when you said it was, why did you expect me to be faithful to you when you'd been over me for so long already?

"And you know what's even funnier still? I actually was. Faithful to you, that is. I just didn't know it, that's all. Because I was never as close to any girl as I was to you, ever again; I guess I never trusted anyone as much as I trusted you."

Usually, I'm not a sentimental kind of guy; most of the time, I feel more comfortable with expressing myself in actions instead of with words, especially in situations where it involves some mushy kind of feeling. But now, I guess I need to say the words out loud; I'm convinced, and I know I need to convince Anne as well.

"So I guess, that means… I love you. In fact, I guess it means I've never stopped, all these years. Loving you, that is."

And you know what? Now that I've spit it out, it's priceless, the way Anne leaps up from her seat and launches herself at me as I stand up just in time to meet her halfway and catch her; the way I feel when I hear those words spoken back to me, sending me right into seventh heaven.

"Frederick," Anne says, hugging me tightly, "I never stopped loving you, too. And it's too good to be true, to have you back in my life again."

Just like that, I feel as if we've opened up a time warp and gone way, way back; back beyond where we left off in '01, back before I said goodbye to Anne and flew off to Texas. I'm back at Commencement Day now, more than twelve years ago, at the point when I felt ready to commit my entire life to Anne. And I know I'm winging it, but everything from here takes on a life of its own.

"Anne, you know what?" I say. "At the point where we left off, the exact point we left off all those years ago, I'd asked you two questions and you'd said no to both of them.

"Question number one: will you watch an Eminem concert with me? Maybe in Detroit this time?" This is the easy one, and Anne's got an easy answer too.

"That's easy," she says. "Of course. Why wouldn't I? I still remember I owe you that concert, way long ago."

And then I gulp before launching full speed into question number two, the big one, the loaded one.

"And question number two. Will you marry me? Because where we left off, we were practically like family to each other. I wanted to make you a part of my family. So if we're picking up where we left off, then that's what we are; family."

* * *

><p><em>Anne<em>

Being back in Fred's arms again, a place I haven't been for twelve long years, I feel warm, safe, and protected; it's been such a long time since anyone ever took care of me the way he did. Sure, I'd been something of a lone soldier within my family since early childhood, but all the way, Grandma had been my unfailing ally. At least, that lasted until the time when I decided, at age sixteen, to study engineering in college. She hadn't objected, outwardly at least; but she subtly made her position clear by reminding me, gently but repeatedly, of Father's willingness to support my college education if and only if I chose an "appropriately feminine" field of study at a women-only liberal arts college. From ages sixteen through eighteen, I'd felt as if I was battling against the entire world; my school and college friends, however well they meant, just couldn't identify with my struggles about pursuing my field when they didn't have the same burden to cope with. Fred, though, was different; he'd been effectively fending for himself since junior high so he instinctively understood what I was going through; and anticipating my needs was second nature to him when he'd been doing the same for Sophia for years. Despite his fun-loving exterior, he was actually much more mature than many of my other friends; he was the one who thought of all the little practical things, things like finding summer storage for our stuff before our off-campus apartment leases began, and throwing my sheets in the laundry for me the time I had food poisoning and barfed all over them. In the time since I walked away from him, I've grown used to being alone and independent; as an adult, I've become inured to the reality that nobody will put me first except myself. But even though I know I can make it on my own, that I'm perfectly capable of being independent, it's still a wonderful feeling to be _inter_dependent with someone again. To know that from now on, it won't be just me trying to hold up my entire world anymore, because I've now got another pair of hands, another pair of shoulders to share the burden with me.

And then Fred goes on with the two questions – and everything's moving so fast, it's almost as if a freight train hit me, except in a _good_ way; or maybe I should say, it's as if I was being pulled along with said freight train, only it isn't a freight train anymore, but a bullet train that's whizzing along at over two hundred miles per hour.

"Wow." I'm in emotional overdrive, and I feel as if I've lost all powers of articulation. "But yes… of course… yes…"

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

"You would?" I can hardly believe it; it's the same too-good-to-be-true feeling I had when Anne said yes to me the first time around. That time, we were spinning around on a lawn on campus; and now my world's spinning too, even if we're right in the middle of Starbucks and there's hardly any room to swing a cat in here. But even if we aren't physically spinning, the feeling's still the same, only better; and the hug and kiss we share is the best one I've ever had, better than any of the other ones before. And as we pull away and my world slows down again, I can't stop myself from babbling on and on.

"You know what's even better than the first time around? This time, I've actually got a ring, only it isn't with me right now. I got it at the airport before going into Detroit to meet you, that day back in '01. That's the ring I'd like to give you, to follow through with what I should've done way long ago."

I'm so proud of myself, I think I'm going to morph into the Cheshire cat; the grin's probably the only part of me that anyone can see right now.

* * *

><p><em>Anne<em>

There's actually a ring; Fred actually got me a _ring_ when he headed back up from Texas after his UPT graduation. With this little piece of new information, the enormity of what I did that day hits me like a sledgehammer; I'm horrified, utterly horrified at just how callous I've actually been without even knowing it.

"Oh my God," I breathe. "You actually had a _ring_. Which means - I was _so_ insensitive to you that day, and yet I never knew just how bad it was all the way until now. You were going to give me a _ring_, for God's sake, and I just walked out on you like that without even giving you a chance to say any of the things you wanted to say to me. How could you ever forgive me for that?"

Fred's face falls; he was so happy, so pleased with himself, until he saw how what he'd just said set me right off all over again. And I want to be happy, I actually do; it's just that I'd never known that in being cruel to be kind, I'd ended up being more cruel than kind to him when that was the last thing I'd ever want to do. But I'm not going to blubber over it ever again, not when we've got so many chances to make it up to each other in the future; and so, I take one last swipe at my eyes and blink the tears away.

"Hey. Baby." Fred hasn't called me that for the longest time; I lean my head on his shoulder and he strokes my hair with his hand. "I forgave you long ago, didn't I? And this is supposed to be a happy time for both of us; I just asked you to marry me and you said yes. So let's put the past behind us and go out there and be happy, yeah?"

"Yeah. Let's." I'm ready now, ready to be anywhere, especially anywhere in Detroit, making happy memories with Fred; because this place is now much more than just his home and my home. Now that we've promised ourselves to each other again, this place is going to be our home together too.

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

I hand Anne my car keys for the drive from Wayne County Airport to Plymouth; we'll have to spend a few bucks on overnight parking for her car, true, but on this very first night of our reconciliation, we just wanted to have the feeling of going home together again. It's exactly the same as it was more than ten years ago; we were always going home together, even if we walked through different but neighboring doors at the end of that journey.

"Hey, Anne," I can't help needling her just a little. "You know why nobody could ever match up to you in my mind? I can't imagine any other girl who'd think I was like Lionel Messi. Magical. But I can't help feeling a little intimidated by that comparison; I'm still wondering how I could ever live up to it."

"Well, I could compare you to someone else if you want," quips Anne. "How about Tex Johnston****?"

"So now you think I belong in a flying circus?" I can't help breaking into a self-deprecating smile. "Well, yeah, I guess the Thunderbirds are like the 21st century equivalent of barnstorming. But hey, I'd like to think of myself as being a little bit more than a clown in a souped-up flying circus, you know."

"Hm. A souped-up flying circus. That's pretty apt," Anne laughs. "But that wasn't what I meant when I said that. Remember when we read about the famous barrel roll of the Dash-80 prototype? The first 707 ever built? Everybody thought Tex was being a maverick, gambling the aircraft and the entire company in a single swoop. But all the while, Tex knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew he'd be able to bring the airplane back safely for sure. And that's exactly like how you are. People who don't know you think you fly by the seat of your pants most of the time, but the risks you take are actually much more measured than they seem to be. And I understood that, all the while; that's the secret behind your magic."

She's right on the money, more so now than any other time before. I've asked her to marry me on the spur of the moment not just once, but twice by now; and that doesn't change the fact that without a doubt, we both know it's absolutely the right decision for us. So how could I not be head over heels in love with Anne, even more than I have ever been before, when despite all our years apart, she still understands me so much better than anyone else I know?

* * *

><p>It's past Tiffany's bedtime when Anne drops me off at my house; Sophia says she's still waiting up for me to say good night, and so the first thing I do is to go to her room where I find that instead of using the top bunk I've generously offered her, she's still squished herself into the bottom bunk, curling her arms and legs around Walter.<p>

"Tiffany, don't you want to sleep in the top bunk? You'll have more space up there," I tell her.

"Uncle Freddy, I know you don't like Walter," she says. "But I don't want to sleep up top, 'cause I don't wanna climb down the ladder when I have to go to the bathroom. I like sleeping here in my bed and I'm OK down here with Walter."

"Where did you get that idea from?" I ask. That's the peril of living with a kid, especially a Wentworth kid; kids never miss anything, do they? "That I don't like Walter?"

"You told me you give your bed to people you like. But Walter was there, and you took him out." Wow, eureka. She hasn't even turned six yet, but you've just got to hand it to her; she's a virtuoso at deductive reasoning.

"That isn't -" My knee-jerk reaction is to say it isn't true, but then, I wonder if it mightn't be better to tell her the truth instead. It'll be embarrassing, sure; but it's a good start to telling her about Anne, isn't it? So I eat my words and say instead, "Actually, there _is_ somebody called Walter whom I don't like very much. But he isn't your rabbit Walter; and I guess I shouldn't be taking it out on your bunny like that."

"Who is he?" Tiffany sits up in bed; she's all perked up with curiosity.

"Well, Charlie's Aunty Annie, you know, he's her daddy. You've met him, the time he took us all out to dinner and you had to dress up."

"Oh." There's a flash of recognition in Tiffany's expression. "That boring old guy."

"Yup," I wink irreverently at her. "That's the guy. Did you know Anne used to be my girlfriend long ago, way before you were born? Well, her daddy Walter, he didn't like me very much, and so I didn't like him either.

"But now, I'm not gonna run away from Walter anymore. Because I asked Anne to marry me and she said yes, and so Walter's going to be a part of my life from now on, whether I like it or not."

"Yay!" Tiffany scrambles out of bed and jumps into my waiting arms. As I stand up carrying Tiffany, Sophia comes up to me too; she's been hanging around in the doorway all this while and she's heard every word I just said.

"Congratulations, Fred," she says. "Anne cares for you so much, and I'm really happy that you finally see it too."

"Yes, I do," I tell her. "Thanks for everything, Soph. I just wish I'd seen it sooner; I'd never known I was as blind as that." And then I turn to Tiffany again.

"Well, I guess I've got to learn to start living a life with Walter in it." In telling Tiffany this, I'm actually telling it to myself, too. "And that means if you want your bottom bunk back, I don't mind if you put Walter back up top again. In fact, I can do it for you right now."

* * *

><p><em>Anne<em>

Did I ever tell you before that bedtime's an extremely rubber concept in the Musgrove household? Well, it is. If I'd been in charge, Charlie should've been in bed long ago on a school night like this, but he's still up with tons of energy to burn; he scuttles over to me as I open the front door after parking Fred's RAV4 in the driveway.

"Aunty Annie! Why are you driving Coach's car?"

"Because," I say, pausing slightly for effect, "I drove Fred home tonight. He's going to be your Uncle Freddy for real, and his car's gonna be my car too."

"Coach's gonna be Uncle Freddy? So you're gonna marry him? I told ya, Mommy's right! She said you're in love with Coach! Mommy! Daddy! Did you hear that?" Charlie jumps up and down excitedly, and then runs right back into the living room, pulling Mary and Charles away from the TV and shouting it over and over again, right at the top of his voice.

"_What?_" If there's one thing that's 100% reliable about Mary, it's her ability to pounce on anything with the potential to even be a tiny bit sensational. "You're engaged to Fred Wentworth? You were _engaged_ to Fred Wentworth before? When was that? Anne, you never told us! How _could_ you?"

"Uncle Freddy and Aunty Annie." Someone tugs at the hem of my jacket; it's Wally, and I'm hardly surprised that the din woke him up and he's padded his way downstairs. "Coach's Uncle Freddy?"

"Yes, that's right," I tell Wally as I bend down and pick him up. "I promised to marry him, so you can start calling him Uncle Freddy again. And Charlie, I'm sorry I lied the other day, when I said I wasn't in love with him. Because I am; I've been that way for a long time. I just didn't want to say it, that's all; not when I wasn't sure he felt the same way too."

"So you _lied_ to us about Fred Wentworth, huh?" says Mary. "Well, _I'm_ not letting you off until you tell me how you landed yourself with such a hunky boyfriend, and how you could possibly let him go after that. And then now you're back together, huh? It wouldn't have happened without us looking after Tiffany, right? So you've gotta thank me for that, for being your _matchmaker_ all this while. And I still can't believe you never said a word about it all for _years_; how, how, how could you _ever_ do this to me?"

"I would've; I would've told you." If there's anything I've learned from all these years of living with Mary, it's the art of maintaining my sanity in the midst of a houseful of hysteria. "Things just happened to go wrong before I got around to telling you, that's all. And of course I'll tell you the story. In fact, I could tell you everything tonight, but _after_ we've put the kids to bed; it's a school night, isn't it?"

Charles picks up Charlie, and comes up to me with a grin. "Good for you," he says, "because if anyone deserves to find happiness in life, it's you for sure."

My family's never been one for the kind of group hugs Sophie and Tiffany give to Fred; I do edge closer to Charlie and bump foreheads with him, though, and Mary, after giving us a little jealous pout, comes up and envelopes the boys and me into a hug. The makeup of our household may seem a little odd to other people; but at the times when it really counts, we're still a family just the same.

* * *

><p><em>Disclaimer: "Coming Home" is a song by P. Diddy, featuring vocals by Skylar Grey. There's also a reference to Eminem's "Till I Collapse" in this chapter.<em>

_* The King Air is a propeller aircraft which is popular in both private and military usage. The smaller models of private jets, such as the Learjet models, for example, start at above US$ 5 million; and larger jets can go up to US$20-30 million or more. In contrast, a King Air would be about US$2-3 million, or even if new and well fitted out, in the ballpark of about US$5-6 million. Of course, the King Air is a far cry from a private jet in terms of stature, luxury and glam factor; hence the Elliots are pretenders rather than truly belonging to the private jet set._

_** The McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and Lockheed L-1011 TriStar were two competing aircraft models, developed by McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed respectively, launched in the early 1970s and widely used in commercial service through the 1980s and 1990s. The two aircraft are very similar in appearance although they are competitors, so it is easy for laymen (like the Elliots in this story) to think that both of them are the same._

_*** This is the crash of United Airlines Flight 232 on 19 July 1989. Of the 285 passengers and 11 crew members who were on board the flight, 111 people perished; however, the flight crew were lauded for their courage and skill in landing the aircraft as the survival rate was much higher than expected, given that the aircraft was virtually uncontrollable with no working hydraulic systems._

_**** Alvin M. "Tex" Johnston (1914-1998) was a test pilot for Boeing during the period when the 707 was developed, and he is famous for performing an unauthorized barrel roll with the first 707 prototype (which was called the Dash-80) during a demonstration flight over Lake Washington on 7 August 1955, which scandalized Bill Allen, the then-president of Boeing, but ended up becoming the catalyst that drew commercial attention to the aircraft. This is the barrel roll Anne is talking about, whereas Frederick is making a reference to Tex's history as a barnstormer (which is what aerobatics stunt pilots were called in the 1920's) in his early years of flying._

* * *

><p><em>Chapter afternote: Anne and Frederick's exchange about Tex Johnston is a message to all of us readers, that every once in a while we might find ourselves inadvertently being a Lady Russell, just as Bill Allen was the day he blew his top at Tex for barrel-rolling the Dash-80 prototype aircraft. Allen himself was a Wentworth to the Lady Russell's of the industry in those days, by staking the entire Boeing Company on the commercial gamble that was the 707 (and later repeating the same feat with the 747). So by reminding ourselves that there could very well be a Lady Russell in all of us every time we tut at somebody who's doing something that's risky in our eyes, this conversation serves the purpose of the resolution in canon, where Lady Russell comes to accept Wentworth and that she was mistaken about him.<em>

_Anne's reference to her discovery of Frederick still treasuring their mementoes of the past "in the fall" is also a deliberate homage to the "autumnal" spirit of canon._


	13. When He Shines

**Chapter 13 – When He Shines**

_Anne_

Every time I tell Mary anything, it'll be guaranteed to make the rounds of all three generations of Musgroves within 24 hours; that's happened before with news of much lower shock value than my engagement with Frederick, so I'm not at all surprised when I find that I've been totally pre-empted in the announcement I make at dinnertime on Thursday.

"That's my girl, Annie!" says Mr. Musgrove heartily. "You sure took a long time to catch 'im, but you've got 'im good now, haven't you?"

"Anne, dear," Mrs. Musgrove says, the tears welling up in her eyes, "you've always been almost like a daughter to us, and I'm sure your mom and grandma would be so proud and happy to see you becoming a beautiful bride, if only they could be here today."

Lulu catches my eye with a shy, embarrassed look, but doesn't say a word to me throughout dinner; after I've finished helping Mrs. Musgrove clear the table, though, she pulls me aside by the adjoining door to Charles' half of the duplex.

"Anne? I'd really like to feel happy for you," she says quietly. "But at the same time, I feel horrible about myself too. I feel stupid."

"Lulu, having a crush on somebody, well, it's just a normal, human thing that everybody goes through," I tell her. "I used to have a crush too, a huge one that lasted for years. Want to hear about it?"

"A crush?" Lulu perks up immediately at the improbability of it all. "Anne, you've always been so _sensible_; I can't imagine how you could ever have a crush on anybody. Who was he, anyway? Was he Freddie? Before you guys got together?"

"No," I'm smiling, thinking about how small my problems really were in those days of early teenhood; when the damage Liz was doing to my popularity status in school and an impossibly ridiculous teenage infatuation with an actor were the only concerns I had in life. "From seventh to ninth grade, I used to have a huge crush on River Phoenix. I watched a rerun of _Stand By Me _when I was twelve, and then _Dogfight_ when I was thirteen, and I was completely and irrevocably hooked from that time onwards. I thought he was cute, and my friends at school did too. And then when he died, I hid in the bathroom with my magazine cutouts of him for an entire day, crying my eyes out. I was in boarding school by then, so there was no way I could possibly cut a whole day of class like that without being tracked down; by the time lessons were done, everybody knew exactly where I was and what I was doing, and Liz and her friends laughed at me for weeks after that."

"River Phoenix? Isn't he, like, some hippie kid or something?" Lulu giggles in spite of herself. "Anne, you're so _ancient_."

"Guilty as charged." I actually grin; most other times, I'd take immediate umbrage at the twins' perception of me as an old fuddy-duddy, but now nothing, absolutely nothing, can pierce through my euphoria at being granted a second chance with Frederick. "Lulu, will you do something for me? I think Fred will want to talk to you, to apologize for the misunderstanding and make sure you're OK about the way things are, about us being together. He'll be coming by on Sunday afternoon before you go back to campus; will you talk to him then?"

Lulu hesitates for a long while, and I try to make my expression as encouraging as I possibly can.

"Well," she finally says, "I guess I can't be any dumber than you were about River Phoenix. At least, I believed Freddie could actually _like_ me back, but River Phoenix's a film star, there's no way he'd ever even _talk_ to you. And so OK, I guess, I'll talk to Freddie when he comes."

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

It's time for me to tell Louisa I can't be her "Superman"; she knows it already, but it's still my basic duty to clear the air with her anyway.

"Louisa, I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong idea," I begin awkwardly. "I guess – if I misled you in the past, I ought to take responsibility for it now."

"Freddie," Louisa looks down shamefacedly, refusing to meet my eye; there's a trace of hurt and accusation in her voice as she addresses me. "I suppose you must be thinking I'm really stupid. But you never said anything about you and Anne, and you could've told me I was nobody to you."

"You aren't 'nobody' to me," I counter. "I do respect you as a friend; and as a sister, because in a way, that's what we're going to be. And from now on, you can always count on me to be just that to you; a brother." And, I resolve, that's exactly how it's going to be in the future, even though it hasn't quite been so up till now.

"Thanks," Louisa glances up tentatively. "Friends?"

"Friends," I keep my expression perfectly serious, even though I feel a little like smiling; I don't want her to think that I'm mocking her. "And all the best for your classes this semester; and don't let this incident stop you from enjoying college life, because college is simply the best – you've got so much freedom, and yet you don't have to face the real world out there just yet. Just be careful, and stay safe."

"OK. I will. And… congratulations." She's still wavering, but the resentment is gone from her voice.

"Thanks. You take care, OK?" I guess I can smile now; I've made my amends, and now I can fully concentrate on looking forward instead of looking back.

* * *

><p><em>Fall 2012<em>

_Frederick_

We're past the age of having to seek Walter Elliot's consent to marry; I know that. In fact, we were already above the age of parental consent the first time we got engaged. But still, I get a perverse sense of pleasure in showing up at the Elliots' condo in Palm Beach with Anne to inform him – not to ask him, but to _inform_ him – of my plans to marry Anne.

"A young upstart of an airline pilot," says Walter, appraising me with his face, his eyes, and his entire manner; his voice is every inch as smooth, cold and impersonal as his Botoxed skin. "Well, I suppose you'll have to do, when it's only Anne that we're talking about. You're of the professional class, at least. Of course, if it were Elizabeth, I'd have higher expectations."

"Excuse me, _sir_," I meet him eye to eye and match him word for word, tone for tone in deliberate, measured hostility. "Anne has never been _only_ Anne to me; in fact, she's the most important person in my entire life. She's the person who shaped me into who I am; she's been behind everything I achieved, right from the day I first got to know her in freshman year at MIT. That was sixteen years ago, and I believe I've waited long enough – in fact, much too long – to pledge my life to her."

"You say you knew Anne at MIT," Walter's impassive mask melts a little as he drifts into a few moments of introspection, and a wave of recollection takes over his face. "For your information, Anne never got involved with anyone when she was at MIT. I wouldn't allow it; she was strictly forbidden from consorting with any man outside our circle. There was this time when some young punk – a gas station attendant, I believe – tried to have a fling with her and I put a stop to it the very minute it was drawn to my attention."

"Father," Anne cuts in; her voice is perfectly calm despite the anger and defiance in her eyes. "That man you're calling a 'young punk' is none other than Frederick, and I'm not going to accept it if you ever call our relationship a 'fling' again. It's unfair, and it's untrue. And when you told me to end it that summer – my relationship with him – well, I didn't. We wouldn't be here if I did."

"I was indeed a gas station attendant, if you wish to call it that," I say, deliberately infusing every word of my reply with biting sarcasm. "When I was at _MIT_, I spent my summers refueling private jets at various FBO operations to pay my way through flight school. And I was also the valedictorian of my class, and nine years later, I became a Major in the Air Force. Do you need me to fax you my resume? Not that it's going to change the outcome, anyway."

Walter faces off with me in perfect silence, like boxers facing each other off in the ring before an epic showdown. He doesn't flinch, and I don't flinch either; it's a contest, a lengthy, protracted competition to see who caves first. And finally, after what seems like an eternity, it's Walter who breaks the stalemate.

"That will do," he says, with all the imperiousness of a monarch. "I suppose you will look more than presentable beside Anne, when we next choose to extend our hospitality to you. And you may go now. Good day."

With a single wave of his hand, we are dismissed. And Elizabeth, who was as still and silent as a statue the entire time I was speaking to Walter, bats her eyelashes and pouts flirtatiously at me as we walk past her to the door. Anne acknowledges her with the barest tilt of her head, but I don't even bother; I want her to see that to me, she might as well not exist at all.

* * *

><p><em>Anne<em>

As we drive away from Father's in our rental car, Fred blasts rap music on the stereo; at the volume it's being played, the song, an unfamiliar song to me, simply reeks of rebellion:

_Knowledge will begin until I finish this song_

'_Cause the rhyme gets rougher as the rhyme goes on…_

…_I'm the R and A to the K-I-M_

_If I wasn't, then why would I say I am…_

… _I want you to hear this perfectly clear_

_Catch, what you sayin', you get the idea_

_I hope you knowledge the beginning 'cause I'm finished this song_

_The rhyme gets rougher as the rhyme flows on_

"Fred, tone it down," I say, wearily trying to raise my voice above the music. I want to reach out and touch his arm, but I know better than to do that while he's driving. "It isn't worth it, getting mad at him like that."

As the last echoes of "Pump it up, homeboy" fade off, Fred turns the stereo knob; he must've heard me, but he's just doing it mechanically as if he's someplace far away.

"This song, it's from way back when I was in grade school," he mumbles absently. "I used to blast it whenever I felt like rebelling against somebody. Sometimes that was when Dad and Sophia used to ask me why I couldn't be more like Ed, or during those times some of my teachers said to the entire class that we'd never amount to anything much when we grew up. Or later on, when kids in the 'hood roughed me up because they said I was being high and mighty, acting like I was too good for them, just because of the grades I got in school. Every time I played this song, it was as if I was throwing the words 'If I wasn't, then why would I say I am' right into their faces, challenging them to believe I was something different because they'd never see me as anything other than what they believed me to be.

"I was maybe about eight or nine when I first played this song in the house; I thought I had myself covered by putting blankets under the boom box and closing the door and windows in my room, but the sound still carried and I still got into trouble for disturbing Mom anyway. So after that, I always took my boom box outside.

"Actually, I thought I'd outgrown blasting this song by the time I finished high school; until now, at least," he concludes wryly.

"Frederick." This is the first time I've ever heard this story; before this, I'd believed that Fred had gotten past all his youthful insecurities years ago. "Father always had a sharp tongue; that's just part of his nature, and he probably won't change for the rest of his life. But you're not the kid you used to be; you're mature, successful, a military hero. You shouldn't let Father's words undermine your self-confidence, especially when he behaves like that to just about everybody."

"I know that," says Fred, "but it isn't his insulting behavior to me that's making me angry. Walter can put me down a hundred times and I won't give a damn, but the way he treats you – who do you think will be paying for the 'hospitality' he'll _condescend_ to give us? It isn't fair; not to you most of all." And it doesn't escape my notice that, for the first time ever, Fred doesn't refer to Father as "your dad", but as "Walter"; apparently, Father has crossed an unspoken but significant line in his relations with Fred by dint of his cold reception to the news of our engagement.

This is exactly the heart of the matter; the problem that will never go away regardless of whether I marry Fred at age 24, 34 or 44. With Fred being as sharp as he is, he couldn't possibly have missed the way Father and Liz sponged off me the time they visited Detroit; and now that Fred's going to become part of the family too, I'm pretty sure that they'll probably start targeting him as well if I don't do anything about the situation.

For the longest time, people – Grandma, Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove, school friends who've gotten married and set up their families – have been telling me that it's a natural process for your aspirations and goals to change as you grow older; but with my life remaining static as it was, I never could bear to let go of my college bucket list, the old dreams of my youth. Now that I'm back with Fred, though, I've got to actively start thinking about the future, and I can't escape the fact that I _have_ grown older, even with all those years when my life seemed to be standing still. Fred and I have grown roots now; we're simply not the idealistic, footloose youngsters we used to be in college anymore. That doesn't change the fact that I love him, and that my first priority is to keep him in my life sustainably; the operative word, though, is _sustainably_; and to do that, I'll need to challenge my assumptions about myself and my limitations. So when we get home, I'll have some major sorting of my bucket list to do.

"It isn't fair, that's true," I tell Fred. "And we've got to do something about it. We've got to find a way to draw the line with Father and Liz; to make them understand that the way they're spending is neither sustainable nor acceptable to us, especially if they think they can tap on us to finance that lifestyle.

"When I gave you up the last time, I wanted to protect you from all of this, from a life where they'd be taking advantage of us every now and then, making you miserable and making me miserable too. So now that I'm not going to give you up ever again, I have to find a solution. And that means I'll be going back there to talk to them – after I've figured out what I can do about ELMSCO."

"Are you sure you really want to be doing that?" asks Fred. "I thought you always said your life was in aviation, and you weren't interested in taking over the family business."

"I wasn't," I admit. "But now, things are different. I've got you to think about, and I'm willing to fight, to challenge myself, for the sake of your happiness as well as mine. For the longest time, I've been bellyaching about everything that's wrong with ELMSCO and the Elliot way, but I never thought of doing anything about it. Maybe that was OK when I was just fresh out of college, but now that I've chalked up enough leadership experience at work to realistically be able to make a difference, I guess it's high time I started to try."

"Well, as long as _you_ want to do it, I'm behind you all the way," Fred replies. "I have every faith in your ability; you were my mentor, remember, when you told me what I could bring to the table with my valedictory speech? Even then, you already had it in you to be a good leader and manager. But just promise me one thing, OK? If you find that you're really not happy in it, don't force yourself to stay there just because you think that's the only way to hold things together for them and for me; I'm sure we could find other ways out if we think hard enough and talk about it."

"Sure, I'll do that; I promise," I assure him. "If it really doesn't work out, I'll discuss the alternatives with you for sure. But this is something I've got to do not just for you, or for them, but for myself. For years, I've been content to just stay in the background, to think a lot but never speak up. And I used to limit myself, saying I'm good as a technical person but weak as a leader; too weak to drive any meaningful change in the company. So this is a chance for me to prove that I'm more than just that timid good girl I used to think I was, or that other people still think I am. It's a chance for me to get the Elliot family back on our own two feet again. And that's a challenge I can't walk away from, not when I was born as an Elliot daughter after all."

At the end of that little speech, I'm sitting up a little straighter and holding my head a little higher already. I still don't buy into Father, Liz and Mary's version of the Elliot pride, but I've just discovered a different sense of family pride that's all my own; I want to show everyone out there exactly what the Elliot name, especially when it belongs to Anne Elliot (or Anne Elliot Wentworth), is capable of. I want to make it worthy of respect, for the first time in over a decade at least.

* * *

><p><em>Why do you do it, Anne?<em> That's the question I ask myself every single time I have to make a choice between doing what I want for myself and doing what's good for the family, or for other people in my life. And the same answer always comes back to me: _Because from those to whom much is given, much is also expected_.

I guess I've got to thank the Musgroves for inculcating in me a sense of _noblesse oblige_; through hanging out with Charles at the various Musgrove repair garages, I got to know people from all walks of life, and that made me more aware, more sensitive of just how fortunate I was to be born into a family of affluence. I realized that there were kids, even a few of the kids at my school, to whom some of the creature comforts I took for granted - like having a car to take me to and from school and being able to go on holiday several times a year - were the height of luxury. And because I knew that I'd been conferred so many advantages just by an accident of birth, I always felt that I had no excuse not to pay it back; if I was in a position to help anyone – family or friend or stranger – I didn't just want to or choose to; I was _obliged_ to.

But as far as taking care of Charlie and Wally is concerned, I'm no longer in a position of plenty, am I? Fred and I may have decided to live in Plymouth, but I'll have my own household to take care of; and if we have the capacity to help anyone with babysitting, Sophie's got to take priority because she's got fewer backup resources to tap on. And I suppose it's time Mary became more aware of the real world; ever since childhood, neither she nor Liz ever had any friends from a different background, and that's probably why they can subscribe to a distorted sense of Elliot superiority whereas I can't.

Even Charles, by the time he started befriending and then dating Mary in earnest, was a different Charles from the easy-going boy I grew up with; four years of college had left him with enough finesse to know that lying on garage floors looking at the undercarriages of cars was probably not the best way to go about courting a girl, and besides, his main mission was to bring some cheer into Mary's life and give her a respite from the morbid atmosphere pervading our household with Grandma's illness. Effectively, we've been wrapping Mary in cotton wool ever since the day she was born; to all of us, Charles included, she was always the little girl who'd grown up without a mom, who had a reason to be insecure and who needed to be protected. Well, she's thirty this year, and I suppose it's high time we eased her out of little-girlhood, even if I feel slightly guilty about being the one who's got to do it.

"Mary," I say, "you know, Fred and I are looking for a house in Plymouth. Remember when I first moved in with you and Charles, how I said I'd move back out on my own after Wally gets settled in kindergarten? Well, I guess I've got to shift that plan forward by a couple years now, and I wanted to talk to you a little, about how things would change because of that."

"Anne, of _course_ I won't begrudge you moving out with Fred," says Mary. "You're getting married, so why shouldn't you have a house of your own? But you'll still be living nearby, and we'll all still be seeing each other very often. So why would things be any different?"

"For starters, I'd like you to do something, or rather, to think about something; not so much for my sake, but for the sake of Charlie and Wally, and Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove." Even though it's a little bit of a pep talk, I try to be as gentle as possible. "When we were growing up, we never had to do any chores and neither did Father nor Grandma, but the kind of help we had was a real luxury; very few families have that these days. And even though they aren't poor by any means, you know Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove don't believe in fancy spending; it just isn't their style to live like that. So after Rosa retired and Wally was born, I stepped in because I thought it just wasn't fair to leave all the responsibility of looking after both boys to Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove; they've brought up Charles and Hetty and Lulu all on their own, and they're already putting in a lot of time and effort watching the kids in the daytime.

"The biggest reason why I came was to lighten Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove's load; and after I'm married, I hope you'll help carry on where I leave off, to think of them and pitch in a little too – with the kids, and with the house. Bringing up a kid is about much more than just kissing and hugging them goodnight, and playing games with them in the day; there's also a lot of practical stuff, the things our nannies used to do when we were little. But even though we don't have the benefit of nannies anymore now, I'm sure you'll learn how to manage - looking after them is already easier than it was a year or two ago now that they're both a little more independent, and it'll only get better as they grow up and go to elementary school. Can you promise me that? That you'll give it a try?"

"But I'm an _Elliot_," Mary protests. "_Father_ won't ever hear of us doing chores, would he? He'd say it's beneath us."

"Mary, doing something to help ourselves can never be beneath us." As I say this, I realize that although Fred embodies this very value, I'd already learned it from somewhere else before I even met Fred; somewhere much closer to home. "The Musgroves are doing better than we are right now, and they got there building up the business from scratch; even today, there are times when Mr. Musgrove still gets involved in the garage work at the ground level just to keep himself in touch with what's going on in his business, and Charles is starting to learn how important it is to stay in touch with the ground too. If they can do it, why can't we? There's no shame in honest work, no matter how hands-on it is, if you're able to help yourself and help others by doing it."

"_What_? Did you say the Musgroves are doing better than us?" It might be a simple fact; but Mary's reaction shows just the extent to which she - and Liz too, I'll bet - have been living in a bubble that desperately needs to be punctured by reality. "But that's not possible! We're the Elliots, and we're the richest of all the families we know, aren't we?"

"Well, they _are_ doing better than us," I tell her matter-of-factly. "Auto repair might not be the most glamorous business out there, but their garage chain is profitable and growing, while ELMSCO hasn't been making money for many years. But even though they've been financially better off than Father for quite a while now, they don't go splashing around and flaunting it; being rich doesn't mean you have to be flashy, just as being flashy doesn't necessarily mean you're rich."

"I never knew -" Mary stops short; I guess all this is new to her, and it's starting to sink in. "Wow. Henry and Lucy, they're richer than _Father_, but they never - looking after Charlie and Wally, they've been doing that all this while... Say, d'you think we could afford a nanny? If the garage is really doing so well, then getting some help should be no problem, right?"

"Maybe you could discuss that with Charles." I'm just relieved that part, if not all, of my message has finally gotten through to Mary. "And whichever way you choose to do it, whether you get help or not, I believe you _can_ be a good mom to Charlie and Wally; as long as you truly love the kids, and you love Charles and his family too."

* * *

><p><em>December 2012<em>

_Anne_

"Are you sure you're OK with celebrating Christmas early?" Charles is planning to invite Sophie, Fred and Tiffany to celebrate Christmas with us this year, but unfortunately, Fred's got to fly on Christmas Day itself.

"Of course," says Charles. "What would Christmas be if we couldn't celebrate it with you and Fred? It's your first Christmas as a couple, and our first Christmas as family. So things wouldn't be quite as meaningful if we couldn't all be here."

Just as we've been doing every year, we shift the living room furniture aside to create an impromptu dance floor, and I take up my usual position as the resident spin doctor with the computer, speakers and projector. There's something for every member of the family on my playlist tonight: the Beatles and Elvis Presley for Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove; Scorpions and R.E.M for Sophie; swing music for Charles and Mary; Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus for the twins; and just about every cartoon song there is for the kids.

With kindergarteners in the house tonight, I regretfully can't give Fred his favorite numbers by Nirvana, Korn and Eminem; but I've got a special little surprise lined up for him just the same. It doesn't take long for Fred to ask me if I need help with the DJ-ing so I can enjoy the dancing, to which I tell him there's no reason why I can't DJ _and_ dance at the same time; and just before he leads me to the dance floor, I flip up the track I've got ready for this specific moment to the top of the playlist:

_This man's a child, this man is old_

_Sometimes he's mild, sometimes he's bold_

_This man I love, sometimes in spite_

_Of wishing he'd stick to his guns or abandon the fight_

_But when he shines, oh when he shines_

_Yes when he shines, he shines so bright_

_Sometimes a tramp, sometimes a dude_

_He changes color just like a chameleon that can't find the mood_

_He is a song that's not easy to write_

_He is the moon in the morning and the sun out at night_

_But when he shines, when he shines_

_Oh when he shines, he shines so bright_

_This man's a gentleman, this man is strong_

_This temperamental man plays me along_

_But when he shines, when he shines_

_Oh when he shines, he shines so bright_

_Yes when he shines, when he shines_

_Oh when he shines, he shines so bright_

_But when he shines, oh when he shines_

_Yes when he shines, he shines so bright_

Somewhere along the way, I can't help singing along, articulating all the things I want to say to Fred out loud as we're out there slow-dancing. I've known Fred for so long that I'm more than familiar with the myriad sides to his personality; how he's the swashbuckling Captain America and Jack Sparrow to the kids; a loyal buddy to Tom Harville and James Benwick, and now, to Charles as well; and a right-hand man to Sophia, helpful and considerate to his siblings at every turn. And to me, he's the Tex Johnston to my Bill Allen - his personal style is flamboyant where mine is conservative; he's always ruthlessly down-to-earth where I've got my head in the clouds from time to time; and he's sometimes hot-tempered where I'm a peacemaker. We're opposites in so many ways, and yet, paradoxically, we always had - and still have - so much in common: the way we dare to dream; our affinity for the road less travelled; and how we never say no and never say die once we commit to something we believe in, never mind the bumps, hits, sweat and tears that come along the way. I don't deny that there's the Slim Shady side of him - the kid from the 'hood who's constantly trying to prove he's cool, the kid hidden inside who still hasn't outgrown _South Park_, rap and off-color jokes; and that some people, like Father, won't like him because that's the only side of him they see. But I love him so much precisely because I've seen the many personae that make up Frederick Wentworth and I've come to embrace every single one of them, warts and all; if I do judge him, it's by his finest moments, and that's exactly what I'm telling him with this song. As the music fades, I keep my fingers interlaced behind his neck, and I stand on tiptoe to whisper in his ear.

"This song's for you, Frederick," I tell him. "I love you."

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

I end up wresting the controls for the playlist away from Anne, but she still keeps me company by the computer anyway and I don't mind at all; who could ask for a better co-pilot than her, ever?

It's been years since I last listened to Pink Floyd's _Learning to Fly_; in fact, it's safe to say I never played that track again after the time she gave me the CD single as a farewell present. And as a dance number, it isn't exactly very useful; the attraction of the song's in the lyrics and the guitar riffs, and it's definitely more of a listener's song than a dancing song. But I dig it up and put it on the playlist anyway, because I want to do a number that's specifically for Anne, for her alone.

And would you know, when I do that, it turns out there _is_ indeed something you can do with that song at a party, unlikely as it may seem. Because Tiffany bounds right into the center of our makeshift dance floor and starts playing air guitar, and after some slight hesitation, Charlie goes in and joins her there as well. Wally doesn't take very long to follow them, only he's still too little to really get the concept of air guitar yet; instead, he turns round and round doing the dancing baby's moves from _Ally McBeal_.

Anne elbows me with an amused chuckle. "I was the one who taught him how to do that," she confides in a whisper. "After all, there were times when I used to feel like I was Ally McBeal, and I could sure use a dancing baby."

"Well, you're definitely not Ally McBeal now," I tell her. "Not when you've got me. But if we do end up having kids, you've definitely gotta teach that dance to all of them. It'd be fun."

When I first put this song on to play, I didn't expect anybody to appreciate it, nobody except for Anne and me. But as the kids prance around hamming it up, the twins start cheering and the adults break into an appreciative round of applause as everything wraps up and Tiffany takes a theatrical bow, standing between the two Musgrove boys and holding each by the hand. So by this time, the song's not just about Anne and me anymore; everyone's made it their own, in all their different little ways.

* * *

><p>I'm not sure what's up with the gift Anne's gotten me for Christmas. It's been a long time since I last bungled around in a jewelry shop, but I was pretty happy with myself for getting a really decent present for Anne - a diamond necklace to match the ring I'd given her. I must say, everyone was pretty impressed when she opened it; and then, what did she give me? A black Hello Kitty T-shirt, with another matching one in red for Sophia, and a pair of Hello Kitty sneakers for Tiffany. Petty as it is, I can't help being a little disappointed; she knows I don't even like Hello Kitty, so hey, what's the deal here?<p>

Well, we're packing up the presents, and I'm picking up the fragments of torn wrapping paper the kids have left strewn across the floor, when Anne pounces on me from behind and pops her head over my shoulder.

"That Hello Kitty T-shirt was just a decoy," she says mischievously. "And I don't mind if you never wear it at all. Here's your real Christmas present, to be opened in private after you get home."

The box, wrapped in shiny paper the color of ivory and tied with a gold ribbon, is almost the same size as the one I'd given her many years ago, when we were about to graduate from college, with exactly the same instructions: open in private. It's a collector's scale model of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, painted in the Boeing livery; the perfect addition to my collection of aircraft models. But what's even more exquisite than the model itself is the card that comes with it, a mirror and complement to the card I gave her with the TriStar model practically half a lifetime ago:

_Dear Frederick,_

_As I write this, it is more than ten years to the day that you gave me a very special gift, which I still treasure to this day. As I write this, I'm looking forward to the day the TriStar you gave me will finally land at one of the destinations you named in your note - the living room that we'll be sharing before too long._

_You were absolutely right, not just in deducing that the TriStar was my favorite aircraft then, but also in your spot-on analysis as to why it is so. But the aircraft that I'm giving you now has surpassed the TriStar in my opinion, and I hope, in yours too. Remember how when we were in college, I thought the new generation of aircraft designs were sadly lacking in aesthetics and bold innovation? Well, I'm more than happy to be proven wrong now, more than a decade later._

_In many ways, the Dreamliner is a much bolder aircraft than the TriStar; this is, after all, the very first aircraft to make use of composites as a major material in its body. Its design cues marry functionality and aesthetics in a way I haven't seen in decades of aircraft design - not since the de Havilland Comet and the early 747s. And it embodies environmental consciousness in a way that can only belong to this day and age, the 21st century. That's why it gives me so much joy to bring you the opportunity to be a part of the action when this aircraft comes into our fleet; it's a fitting start to the rest of our life together._

_Just as you gave me the TriStar as a symbol of our past, the nostalgia of the youth we shared together, I'm now giving you the Dreamliner as a symbol of our future, the optimism of the years we have ahead of us. And when we display them in our new home, side by side, we'll know we've come full circle; we've come back to each other at last. _

_Love, _

_Anne_

* * *

><p><em>Disclaimer: "When He Shines", the song that gave this chapter its title and is reproduced in full here, belongs to Sheena Easton. "As the Rhyme Goes On" belongs to Eric B. And Rakim, and the idea of this song being a song of rebellion originally came from Eminem.<em>


	14. Dreamliner

**Chapter 14 – Dreamliner**

_New Year's Day 2013, Palm Beach, Florida_

_Anne_

Even with the obligatory round of entertaining that comes with visiting Father, we still make it back to our hotel in time to ring in the New Year, just Fred and me; I guess this is testimony to the geriatric nature of Father's social circle. Not that I'm complaining, though; I'd much rather have it this way than any other. In line with all the downsizing that's going on at ELMSCO, Father's New Year bash has been unusually subdued this year; instead of a big ballroom-style party at his country club, he's chosen to host a party of about ten "closer" acquaintances to a relatively intimate dinner instead.

"Thanks, Fred." He didn't need to deflect the question when Colonel Wallis had Father caught short by asking point-blank about the state of ELMSCO; but no matter how little he'd wanted to, he'd still helped by diverting the conversation towards the US military involvement in the Middle East anyway. "For saving Father's face tonight; if you hadn't changed the subject when you did, I guess Father would be hard pressed to explain the sale of the Saginaw plant. I'm not sure if he can keep up that façade of ELMSCO 'doing all right' for very long, but you just saved him a ton of embarrassment."

The only reply I get from Fred is a grunt and a nonchalant look; Father is still "Walter" to him and I can't say their relationship has warmed any from the last time we came down, but he's resigned himself to the reality that Father is going to be family, technically at least. And as family, whatever our differences may be, we don't embarrass each other in public. Even Father knows it'd be beneath him to disparage Fred openly to his guests; it'd be a compromise to his impenetrable shell of Elliot dignity.

"Are you going to talk to him about it tomorrow?" asks Fred, changing the subject yet again. I'm going to speak to Father about my involvement in ELMSCO in a strictly one-to-one setting; we both felt that having Fred as an onlooker to that discussion would be awkward, to say the least. "About selling _Kellynch_?"

"I don't know," I admit. In my book, and Fred's too, _Kellynch_ is undoubtedly the first thing that has to go – hanging on to a rickety propeller plane just for the sake of being an aircraft owner in name isn't the strongest rationale for the amount of money that's been bleeding into fuel, maintenance and crew; especially when Father and Liz, cosseted as they like to be, would much rather fly business class on a commercial jet than to step into their noisy, shaky 20-year-old airplane anyway. And we're lucky to be in a position for a rare window of opportunity – the US Air Force, being short of unmanned drones, is buying up used King Air planes for surveillance and recon purposes, so we'd be able to get a much better price than usual for her. But _Kellynch_ has always been something of a sacred cow with Father; whichever one of us who ends up mentioning it to him should best be prepared with a suit of armor.

"I could help manage the sale transaction, I guess," Fred offers. "Those summers I was working at FBOs*, I learned a thing or two about private aircraft sales; once in a while, I'd have to pitch in to help take care of customers, and there's quite a bit you can pick up just by keeping your eyes and ears open. But I'd imagine there won't be much to do in this case; they'll probably just take the aircraft as is, since they'd have to get rid of most of the fancy detailing anyway.

"But maybe that could wait – there's something else, something more urgent, that we'll need to discuss with Walter; he'll need to choose where we'll be holding our wedding."

"I guess," I sigh resignedly. "I'd like to think we had the liberty to decide on that, but as long as Father's around, I suppose there's no way to get out of it, not if we hope to maintain some cordiality with him at least."

"Well, in a way, we _do_ get to decide," declares Fred with a satisfied smirk. "If I read you correctly, I know you won't want our wedding to be in Florida. So before we came out here, I made enquiries with two churches: mine in Plymouth, and the one in Grosse Pointe you went to as a child. By giving Walter a chance to choose between the two, we'll let him feel as if he's making the final decision, when we've actually narrowed it down to what we want already."

"Great," I laugh. "But how did you find out which church I used to go to?"

"That was easy. Mary. And another thing – I'll be picking up the tab for the wedding ceremony. I guess after you're done talking with him, I could come by and tell him about that."

"Pay for the wedding? You shouldn't! That's the responsibility of the bride's family, and I couldn't disregard convention like that. It wouldn't be proper for me to dump the cost of the wedding onto you." It's really sweet and kind of him, and sure, I _am_ very touched by the offer; but still, it just feels wrong to let Father impose on Fred like that. Not to mention, I'll bet Father would probably blow his top if we dared to drop even the slightest hint insinuating that he can't pay for the wedding expenses.

"But that's exactly why I'm offering," Fred insists. "If we go by convention, Walter's supposed to pay, and then it'll probably end up coming from your pocket anyway, which just doesn't sound right to me. I can't leave you to pay for your own wedding, so it seems like the only fair arrangement would be for me to cover it instead."

"Do you really think Father would let you do that?" I argue. "He'll have too much pride to ever give anyone reason to suspect he can't pay for his daughter's wedding; I guess even if he does pass the cost on to me in the end, that just can't be helped. Besides, since we're getting married, does it really matter whether it's my pocket or yours? It'll still be the same pocket eventually, whichever way you look at it."

"Still, I'd feel better if you pass any bills you can over to me on the back end." Fred still won't back down; he's apparently determined to dig his heels in on this one. "As a man, it's the least I could do to help. And knowing Walter, the wedding reception will have to be of a certain standard to meet his expectations; I've anticipated it and set a budget aside for that already."

"Well, _especially_ if you're paying, I'll see to it that the expenses don't get too far out of hand. Neither of us ever believed in splurging around just for appearance's sake, and you don't need to do this because you think I want it that way, because I don't. I'd be just as happy as you to have a plain and simple wedding." It's true; I might be an Elliot daughter, but there's no need to throw away unnecessary money to satisfy any notions of the Elliot pride for _my_ sake, when all along I've never wanted any part of it.

"And any other time, I'd agree with you," acknowledges Fred, before continuing, "But I really don't think we've got much of a choice in this matter. You've always wanted us to get married respectably, with the blessing of our families; to achieve that, the ceremony will have to be something that's presentable to Walter. I know face is the most important thing in his life, and on the day he gives his daughter away in marriage in front of all his guests, he's got to feel that I'm giving him a proper amount of face too.

"Don't worry too much about the expense; it's a once-off event anyway, and I've found a way to keep a lid on our costs. You see, I could rig my schedule to tie things in on a date where we've already committed ourselves for the evening; that way, we'd only have to cater for a church ceremony and a reception afterward, and it'd eliminate any need for fancy dinner entertainment."

"Eminem at Comerica Park," I'm seriously impressed when Fred tells me the date he's got in mind; I couldn't have thought of a more brilliant or elegant way to lock everything in. "Fred, you're a real genius."

Fred has grown up for sure; Father may be just as difficult as ever, but I'd never expected Fred to move from resentment to acceptance this quickly, grudging and tentative though that acceptance may be. It took me years – actually, over a decade – to realize that the adult way to handle Father would be to work around him while engaging him on his terms, instead of keeping a deliberate distance from him as I'd been doing all this while; but Fred's come to the same realization about Father in just three short months since we've been engaged this time around.

Well, it's New Year's Day, and Father's generously allowed us to keep one of the bottles gifted by his guests in our honor. This is a time to celebrate, and I reach out to pop the cork on the champagne we've brought back with us. Here's a toast to 2013, the year when we'll finally be joined in marriage and become a family for real.

* * *

><p>"Happy New Year, Father," I can't help feeling as if I'm fourteen years old again every time I step into Father's home; the stately, formal way in which he receives me never fails to transport me back to a time when he used to sit at the head of the table, always ramrod straight the way he is now, and I'd eat my dinners in perpetual fear of dropping or spilling anything by accident, while surreptitiously sliding my Brussels sprouts and green peas into the folds of the starched linen napkin lying on my lap.<p>

"Well, well. It's good to see that you've kept your manners, even after getting yourself involved with that upstart from Detroit," observes Father. "I see he hasn't deigned to join you in paying your respects this morning."

"Father, Frederick _is_ coming." Even though I know I've got to maintain the appearance of neutrality if I want to get Father on my side, my voice can't help betraying just a trace of how indignant I feel. "He just wanted to give us a little privacy before he comes in, because there's something I wanted to discuss with you; it's about keeping the Elliot pride."

"The Elliot pride?" I guess I can't blame Father for his incredulity, when I've always made it clear, silently but emphatically, that I never agreed with the Elliot sense of superiority. "Since when have you ever cared one whit about the Elliot pride, Anne?"

"Father. _Dad_." This time around, I'm a little more successful in keeping my cool. All my life, I've prided myself on keeping an unwavering sense of integrity; but, I tell myself, this isn't stooping to deviousness; I'm just trying to reach out to Father and relate to him, because there's no way he will meet me on my terms unless I meet him on his first. "I do care about the Elliot name; I always have. This is my family, after all, and I'll still be your daughter even after I'm married. When we handed our Saginaw plant over to Mr. Liu, I was every bit as devastated as you and Liz were. It hurts me, just as it hurts you, to see our family being reduced to this state; and that's why I want to do something to help ELMSCO."

"To help ELMSCO," remarks Father; though he's still skeptical, the derisiveness in his tone has given way slightly to contemplation. "You say you want to help ELMSCO, but you've never made any move to cultivate any business relationships that could be beneficial to us; instead, you insist on marrying that pilot of yours. So how exactly do you think you're going to be of any use to the business?"

"Dad, marriage isn't the only way for me to contribute to ELMSCO," I say, biting back the impulse to come up with a more direct retort. "I've got my education, my work experience, and my skills to offer too. In the past ten years, I've seen through many operational projects at Northwest and Delta; and the merger has given me exposure to much more complex issues than I'd ever have a chance to handle if I'd been working at a smaller, simpler company instead.

"Even though my formal training is in aviation, I've still been watching the trends in the auto industry all this while; how could I not, when I'm living under the Musgroves' roof and I was born and bred in an auto family? So I've got some ideas about what we could do to keep ELMSCO alive, and hopefully, to get us back on track.

"We might've sold off Saginaw, but we've still got a couple of secondary plants left. And it might not make sense right now to buy new technology or equipment, but we could still build on our traditional strength, which is that we're a good old-fashioned manufacturing company, and we always can be counted on to produce reliable mechanical auto parts. We just need to know where our main market is and to focus on it; and that means scrapping our business with the auto manufacturers and remaking ourselves purely as an aftermarket parts supplier. Our technology might not be cutting-edge at the moment, and our margins may be tight; but if we strengthen our partnerships with the Musgroves and other repair garages, there's a chance we could build a niche for ourselves and come out as a leaner, meaner ELMSCO.

"Dad, for this idea to be successful, you and me, we've got to work together as a family. You're on the ELMSCO board, and as the only member of the immediate founding family there, your word holds more sway than anyone else's. If you'd drive the company strategy from the top down, I'd be happy to support you from the bottom up. I know there'll be some staff retirements in operations this year; and when the vacancies open up, I'll apply to get myself hired by ELMSCO, fair and square. When I'm on the ground, I can look for ways to keep our costs in better check, and I can build up support from the ranks, if only you would give us the mandate to make the cuts we need to get ELMSCO back in the black."

"Good intentions to be sure, but my dear girl, you've got a lot to learn." As Father – I mean, Dad – speaks, I tell myself that I've been through so many times when he's been more patronizing than this; yet, such a thought is cold comfort when I've never been this committed to convincing him of anything, nor have the stakes ever been this high before. "As Elliots, we always think big; the small fish are for other people to fry. One thing about you, Anne, is that you're forever setting goals for yourself that are far below the level expected of the Elliot family. Making cuts, indeed! After three generations of building up ELMSCO to the size it is today, surely you could aim for something more ambitious than that. You say you understand the Elliot pride now; you should learn to do more justice to our name, at least."

"Dad, I _am_ doing justice to the Elliot name," I say, quietly but resolutely, "The day the Lius bought over our plant, I swore to myself that I'd never wish the Elliot family to suffer such an indignity ever again, and I thought long and hard about what it takes for us to hold our heads up, to be able to face the world with the Elliot pride intact.

"I _do_ want to think big, and there's nothing I want more badly than for ELMSCO to become even better than before. But if we want ELMSCO to survive long enough to get there, we can't afford to sustain the kind of losses we're making these days. We've got to find a way to regain our profits, and if it means making ELMSCO leaner in the short run, it doesn't matter as long as we're building a stronger company too; a company that can then grow on its own steam. Because with that experience behind us, I've learned something: in order to hold our heads high, we can't be beholden to anybody. It's got to be that way, because if we owe somebody something, we know and they know too; and then we can't hold up our heads to face them until we've repaid our debts in full."

The exquisite irony of the moment isn't lost on me; this is the most calculated, disingenuous thing I've ever done, and yet the very success of my mission lies in my ability to convey the utmost sincerity in my face and manner with my next words.

"And so I've made up my mind that from now on, every bit of money _I_ spend will be strictly within the limits of what I earn; it won't be easy with a home of my own to support, but it's just one little contribution I can make, as a member of the Elliot family, to uphold _our_ pride. It may be just a baby step, but we can make this bigger if we build on it; if we can practice the principle of not being beholden at a personal level and together as a family, we'll be setting an example that everybody else in the company can see. That's our responsibility as the leaders and founders of ELMSCO; and we'll be giving the Elliot pride its greatest glory when we fulfill this role."

"Well," Dad is still sizing me up, but for the first time in a long while, there's something like approval in his expression and his tone. "Before, you used to say you wanted to make your mark on your own; to test your capability to survive without taking advantage of the Elliot name. Your grandma would always say that you were just being young and idealistic, and you would come back to your roots when you got older and took some knocks in life. I suppose you've learnt your lesson; now it's your turn to prove your worth within the Elliot family. Truth to tell, I've decided to leave it up to the young people to run the company a long time ago; if you have any new-fangled ideas, far be it from me to stand in your way as long as your cousin William approves."

"Yes, Dad, I _am_ older now; and I've learned quite a number of things in the past few years," There's a double meaning in everything I'm saying, but I doubt Dad will notice. "I've discovered that family is the most important thing in my life, and that familial duty must always be my first priority." I can say this with a completely straight face because I'm telling the absolute truth, now that "family" no longer means just the Elliot side of the house; anything and everything I do for Fred's sake is also an integral part of my family duty too.

"And," I continue, "there's something else we would like to seek your advice about, Dad. If you'll allow, I'll ask Frederick to come in now. He told me he wants to consult your opinion about our wedding arrangements, so that we can make our plans in accordance with your wishes."

"Very well," says Dad. "He may come. It's been a long time since there was a wedding in the Elliot family, and this must be in every way an occasion befitting the Elliot traditions."

Getting into Dad's shoes and consciously trying to appeal to his reasoning is highly tiring; I can't help letting out a tiny sigh of relief as I start keying in the text to Fred that'll be his cue to knock on the door. With just three short words, I'm able to convey to him the gist of everything that's transpired: "Mission #1 done".

* * *

><p><em>Spring 2013<em>

_Frederick_

I'm in the Seattle area doing simulator training for the Dreamliner, and Anne has come out here to visit me for the weekend. Lorin gives us a ride to SeaTac Airport on Sunday, and we drop into the REI flagship store in Seattle along the way to see if we can pick up some good deals on gear for the cross-country ski trip we're planning this winter. See, Anne and I just made one adult pact to top off all the little pacts we used to make when we were college kids – and that's to find things on our bucket lists that we can do and then set aside some time for them once in a while, no matter how busy our normal schedules may be.

We're browsing through the racks of ski clothing, or at least that's what I think we're supposed to be doing, when Lorin and Anne start drifting away and I start hearing the word "isn't this cute" popping up here and there. True enough, they're not looking at ski wear, or even anything remotely functional, any more; they've flitted across to those racks of ladies' clothing, and Lorin's looking admiringly at a patterned sundress she's holding up against Anne.

"I didn't know you all were gonna look at _women's_ clothes," I protest, earning a baleful look from both of the ladies. "If that's what you're doing, I'm going downstairs to look at the skis and bikes; you can search for me over there when you're done."

"Oh no, you're not," says Lorin firmly. "This dress is _so_ Anne, and you've just got to stay and see her in it. Anne, you'll try it out, won't you?"

I balk, of course, but when Anne comes out of the fitting room, it's as if a light bulb came on in my head, the way it strikes me just how far she's come from the girl I knew in college; in a _good_ way, I mean. Back in our college days, Anne wouldn't be caught dead wearing a dress if we weren't going to one of my ROTC functions or similar; she had her own edgy kind of style which was cute in its own right, but as far from traditionally feminine as you could possibly get. I guess all along, she was trying to stake her claim on a unique identity and establish herself as the opposite of Elizabeth, after so many years of walking in her sister's shadow.

And then the Anne I saw when I moved back to Detroit was just a shadow of the girl I used to know; she'd had the air of someone who didn't have the time, energy or will to care one whit about her appearance. It puzzled me at first, but not for long; the deeper I got myself entangled with the Musgrove family, the more obvious it became to me that Anne was completely in over her head trying to juggle being the perfect employee at work and being the perfect caregiver at home. After we got back on talking terms again, I tried suggesting to her once or twice that she needed to reduce her workload for the sake of her health, if not for any other reason; but she stubbornly insisted that she was coping just fine as she was. So instead of arguing any more about it, I just made it a point to take the two little boys off her hands as often as I could. I was dead right, of course; it was plain for anyone to see how she gradually improved once she had some sanity time for herself, putting some weight back on and looking more rested in general. But I don't have to spell out to her how right I turned out to be when it's gratifying enough that I was able to do something concrete to help make her life easier, even if it's just a tiny, insignificant gesture actually.

This Anne is comfortable in her own skin, and she's no longer afraid to show the world how much of a lady she can be. I always knew she could be beautiful, both in looks and in character; but she used to deny it, telling me that she'd never be able to match up to her sister in the looks department, so why try? Well, the answer is here – because in the big scheme of things, it really doesn't matter what Anne is in relation to Elizabeth; all on her own, she's able to turn heads and take my breath away, and I bet I can't possibly be the only guy in the world who says that.

I'd have thought Anne wouldn't be able to pass on a dress like that, not when she looks so absolutely ravishing in it, but she does; after getting back into her old street clothes, she hangs it on a nearby rack and resolutely walks away.

"Aren't you going to buy it, Anne?" Lorin asks. "It's such a waste if you don't, when you look like such a knockout in it."

"But it's not on sale," says Anne. "And I'm sure I could get a dress like that for less if I shop elsewhere, something without a brand name, and that'd be better value for money. After all, I'd just be paying for the Patagonia label -"

They carry on browsing, and I do go downstairs to look at skis after all; but before I go, I sneak the dress off the rack and buy it for her. After all, we'd scrimped and saved so relentlessly throughout our college years; don't we deserve to indulge ourselves once in a while now that we can?

Well, with our wedding coming up, there'll be plenty of shopping for women's clothes to be done, and I guess I'll just have to put up with it. After all, it's once in a lifetime, isn't it? And, I suppose, when she walks down the aisle looking just like a queen, it'll all be worthwhile. That's what I have to tell myself at least, to make it all bearable to me; and would I know, it's actually true.

* * *

><p><em>Anne<em>

Working on Cousin William turns out to be relatively easy after I've worked on Dad; the key to winning someone over to your point of view, I've figured out, is to find out what makes them tick and appeal to them from that premise. With Dad, it was pride, and with William, it's money. And it doesn't take much effort to impress upon William that even if it isn't clear exactly who will be inheriting Dad's equity in ELMSCO, hastening the demise of the company won't be doing any favors to him financially either.

"I heard from Walter that you're trying to join the company," says William to me a little warily; he invites me out to lunch to size me up as soon as he hears of my interest in ELMSCO. "That's news, an Elliot girl showing interest and _aptitude_ for the auto business; I always thought none of you girls ever wanted to bother your pretty heads about gasoline and grease. And what's in it for you, anyway, if you come in? Thinking you can sweet-talk Daddy into giving you a bigger share of the pie?"

"Yes, I _will_ be applying for a job with ELMSCO," I acknowledge matter-of-factly. "But if I do come in, I'm coming through the front door, fair and square. It'll be completely above board, and I won't accept any arrangement that even suggests otherwise.

"And there is a possibility there won't be anything in ELMSCO for any of us, if the company ends up going bankrupt. I may be relatively new to the affairs of ELMSCO, but to me, that possibility is very real, especially after we've been forced to sell Saginaw. In fact, you could say the sale was the wake-up call that brought me to this point.

"But I shouldn't be the only person saying all this; as the CEO of ELMSCO, the stakes in keeping ELMSCO alive are higher for you than for anyone else. You're not only getting your salary from there; there's also the equity stake that Dad put in your name when he made you in charge of the company. And who's to say he won't give you a bigger stake if you succeed in making ELMSCO profitable again? You'll still be the CEO, and I'll be just a normal employee. The only advantage I think I can bring in with me is my experience working in a company that's gone into bankruptcy and subsequently been acquired. And even then, I can't pretend to be an expert in any other area than operations; I don't have any ambitions to take over as the CEO.

"I'm just doing this as a matter of conscience, really; if ELMSCO were to go down without my even trying to help, I won't be able to sleep at night as an Elliot daughter. And if I help, it'll only be in a very small way, to identify the areas where we could cut down on our operating costs. How we turn the rest of the business around will still be all up to you."

When I do come on board, I seriously doubt if I really am being hired fair and square after all; especially when my new office is a room instead of a cubicle and I have a secretary of my own. But even if I don't think I fully deserve the seniority I'm being given, it does come in handy when I drop a note to William to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the first cost-cutting measure we could implement is to cut back on the corporate plane.

William bites readily enough, because it's been a sore point with him all along that even though _Kellynch_ is technically an ELMSCO asset, her main purpose is actually to ferry Dad and Liz around when they fly within the Midwest. Or, I should say, that was the case before they moved to Florida, at least; in the years since, our plane has just been sitting pretty, only because it'd be beneath the Elliot pride to allow her to rust.

So it's William who heads to Palm Beach, sans armor, to talk Dad into selling _Kellynch_; he invites me to fly down with him, but I tell him I'll be fine joining in the discussion over Skype instead. Fred insists on my smuggling him into my office to watch the action; it's a little discomfiting, actually, just how entertaining he's finding this entire business to be.

"Mr. Elliot, sir, how would you like to consider an opportunity for ELMSCO to become a pioneer in patriotism?" says Cousin William unctuously; for all his posturing back in the office, Dad is never "Walter" or even "Uncle Walter" when William addresses him in person. Oh no, God forbid that he'd ever be as familiar as that; he'll always butter Dad by calling him "Sir" whenever he can.

"Patriotism? William, I never expected to get a lesson in that from you, of all people; don't you know ELMSCO has been the very model of American patriotism ever since we first opened for business? We were right there in the founding generation of big auto; how many companies do you know of who can make that claim?" I turn around and flash Fred an amused grin; apparently, even the lofty CEO of ELMSCO isn't above getting a dressing-down from Walter Elliot, never mind that I can't quite figure out how being there in the days of the Model T Ford has anything to do with patriotism in the first place.

"Ah yes," William coughs discreetly and changes his tack. "Of course. But this is another matter altogether; it's about showing the world that ELMSCO is right there at the forefront of the latest trends. As you probably know, the US military is looking for reconnaissance airplanes, and we happen to have the very model that they need. If we sell the _Kellynch_ to the US Air Force, that'll be an invaluable piece of positive publicity for us; it'll show how we're actively supporting the war effort, not to mention that we'll be getting a good price for the plane while we're at it."

Dad mulls it over, sitting in his leather chair and stroking his chin; meanwhile, Fred gives me a poke from behind and mouths the word "delusional" as I put a warning finger to my lips; he'd better not say anything out loud, especially when they're not supposed to know he's there. But he's right, of course; the Air Force's interest in acquiring King Airs came out in the news long ago, and there's no way ELMSCO selling the aircraft could possibly generate even a tiny ripple of media interest.

"Well, yes. Indeed," Dad finally speaks. "I believe you have a valuable idea there, after all; it's imperative that ELMSCO must be seen to be keeping up with the times. With corporate social responsibility being all the rage these days, contributing our company plane to support the war effort is a perfect way to showcase our dedication to the American cause. And besides, it won't do for us to be flying an old plane like that when our competitors have the latest jets. No, no; you're right; we've got to keep up. So you may proceed. Sell it. Anne, what do you think?"

"Dad," It's an uphill task to maintain a straight face with Fred smirking and snickering behind me, "I absolutely agree. These days, companies don't keep corporate jets on their books anymore; it's a lot more convenient and economical to just charter a jet whenever you need it, and it gives you much greater flexibility to hire different types of airplanes for different trips, depending on the size of your party. I honestly believe this is the way to go, if we want ELMSCO to stay relevant with the times."

I've barely gotten off Skype before Fred and I burst into laughter at my little piece of equivocation; if I have it my way, nobody in ELMSCO is going to charter a private jet anytime in the foreseeable future. With all our plants clustered within the state of Michigan, there's hardly a need to fly for business purposes; and while I'm at it, I'm going to drop a hint to William that it'd give the bottom line a little boost if he'd just consider flying coach for his jaunts to Florida. _The Emperor's New Clothes_, anyone?

Fred's the one at the controls when we fly _Kellynch_ out for the final transaction; in his zeal to cut costs and improve the bottom line, William gave the go-ahead to let go of our pilot as soon as we'd made the decision to sell the plane.

"I'd forgotten just how noisy a turboprop can be," he says afterward, rubbing his temples as if he's got the biggest headache in the world. "It's been a really long time since I last flew one."

It isn't only about the noise, I know, because an F-16 isn't exactly an inner sanctum of Zen and tranquility by any standards. In the end, it all boils down to this – Fred will never quite see eye to eye with the Elliot pride, and to be honest, I probably won't either. But learning to co-exist with Father and Liz, albeit from a distance, is part and parcel of our duty as a family; and that's what we're learning to do, one little step at a time.

* * *

><p>Have you ever dreamed about your own wedding as a little girl? I remember the times when Liz, Mary and I used to play with Mom's old clothes that Grandma kept in a trunk; Liz would always be the bride, tottering around in ridiculously high adult stilettos and sporting a make-believe veil cut off from an old tablecloth, while I'd be the bridesmaid dutifully holding up her train. Naturally, Mary was the flower girl; every now and then, we'd sneak into the garden and pick real flowers, so she could pull off the petals and scatter them around on the floor.<p>

Never in all those years could I have imagined the situation to be reversed; that I'd be standing here, at this very church in Grosse Pointe that Liz used to daydream about being married at, with Liz as my maid of honor instead of the other way around. I can barely believe I'm standing here, swathed in white silk ornately decorated with beads, lace and brocade, with a tiara holding the veil to my head. In our family, I was never the one who had any delusions of wanting to be royalty; those kinds of pretensions were reserved for Dad and Liz alone. And it's Dad who insisted that I must be decked out in the most magnificent regalia he can afford; I suppose it's his way of living his dreams of grandeur vicariously through my wedding. The entire setup today is the picture of Elliot hospitality at its grandest; but whatever I said to Dad about our taking pride in not being beholden must've got through to him after all, because he hasn't passed me a single bill or invoice for the wedding expenses. I have noticed, though, that he hasn't bought a single new designer suit in the past months leading up to my wedding, and that Liz has stopped pestering me about buying new handbags and shoes too; the tux he's wearing today, though expensive, is an old one made over, and I know it came from the days when Mom was alive; I just don't know exactly when, until he tells me.

"Elizabeth would've been so happy to see her little girl getting married at last," Dad says to me in a rare bout of sentimentality as he prepares to take my arm for the walk down the aisle. "And by wearing the outfit I married her in, maybe I can bring a part of your mother here to be with us after all."

Everyone else in the Elliot family may choose to remember this as the day of my grand wedding, when Frederick and I could well have been a prince and princess for a day. But for me, I'd rather remember this day as something else; no matter what differences we may have amongst each other in the future, I want to cling on to the memory of this day as a celebration of our family ties at their very best: father and daughter, sister and sister, husband and wife.

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

It's a relief to change out of our formal garb and head to Comerica Park after all the pomp and circumstance at Grosse Pointe; now, we can finally be ourselves at last. The last time I attended any of Eminem's live performances before this was way back in the summer of '99, and look how far I've come since then. I'm watching, for the first time, a "home" performance by Eminem in Detroit and I've built a comfortable home of my own here too; I've attained the success and stability I hoped for in my career; and the crowning glory of it all is that I've finally brought some permanence into my relationship with Anne.

I still remember being in Atlanta in the summer of '99, and how I'd gotten myself into the front row, so close that I could practically touch the stage. It was so exhilarating, thinking of the whole crowd of people who'd turned out to see a kid like me, a scraggy kid from Detroit in a ripped T-shirt and baggy jeans. It was mesmerizing, watching a kid like that being on the verge of becoming the next big thing, just as I hoped I was standing on the threshold of success too, albeit on a much smaller scale.

_What's my name?_

_Atlanta, what's my name?_

_Hi! My name is… what?_

_My name is… who?_

_My name is…_

The crowd that day hadn't been as warmed up as I'd wished them to be; after all, this was still the raw Eminem, still a relative unknown who was only just starting out. But I yelled "Slim SHA-DY!" right on cue every time, right at the top of my voice. Shady, I guess I was crazy about you back then; only my name's Fred and I ain't Stan.

Eminem's music has gotten much more polished over the years; the lyrics are slicker, the delivery is slicker, the moves are slicker, and the MTVs are also slicker. Some people say his songs have become mainstream and commercialized, but I've still found new songs that ring true to me, if only because they reflect a more mature viewpoint that's wiser in the ways of the world, just as I am. Like this one, which sums up the story of my life before Anne and I got back together, hitting all the little nuances so precisely that I couldn't have said it better myself.

_I'm just so… depressed_

_I just can't seem to get out this slump_

_If I could just get over this hump_

_But I need something to pull me out this dump_

_I took my bruises, took my lumps_

_Fell down and I got right back up…_

… _I don't know how or why or when_

_I ended up being in this position I'm in_

_I'm starting to feel dissing again…_

… _so hard to swallow_

_But I can't just sit back and wallow_

_In my own sorrow but I know one fact_

_I'll be one tough act to follow_

_One tough act to follow_

_I'll be one tough act to follow_

_Here today, gone tomorrow_

_But you'd have to walk a thousand miles_

_In my shoes, just to see _

_What it's like to be me _

_I'll be you, let's trade shoes_

_Just to see what it'd be like to_

_Feel your pain, you feel mine_

_Go inside each other's minds_

_Just to see what we'd find_

_Look … through each other's eyes…_

…_I'm not looking for extra attention_

_I just wanna be just like you_

_Blend in with the rest of the room_

_Maybe just point me to the closest restroom…_

… "_Ha! Marshall you're so funny man_

_You should be a comedian, god damn!"_

_Unfortunately I am_

_I just hide behind the tears of a clown_

_So why don't you all sit down_

_Listen to the tale I'm about to tell_

_Hell, we don't gotta trade our shoes_

_And you ain't gotta walk no thousand miles_

_In my shoes, just to see _

_What it's like to be me _

_I'll be you, let's trade shoes_

_Just to see what it'd be like to_

_Feel your pain, you feel mine_

_Go inside each other's minds_

_Just to see what we'd find_

_Look … through each other's eyes…_

… _Nobody asked for life to deal us_

_With these … hands we're dealt_

_We gotta take these cards ourselves_

_And flip 'em, don't expect no help_

_Now, I could've either just sat …_

_And … moaned_

_Or take this situation in which I'm placed in_

_And get up and get my own…_

… _I just wanted to fit in _

_At every single place, every school I went_

_I dreamed of being that cool kid_

_Even if it meant acting stupid … _

… _But I already told you my whole life story_

_Not just based on my description_

_Because where you see it, from where you're sitting_

_It's probably 110% different_

_I guess we would have to walk a mile in each other's shoes at least_

_What size you wear? I wear 10's _

_Let's see if you can fit your feet_

_In my shoes, just to see _

_What it's like to be me_

_I'll be you, let's trade shoes_

_Just to see what it'd be like to_

_Feel your pain, you feel mine_

_Go inside each other's minds_

_Just to see what we'd find_

_Look … through each other's eyes_

_Beautiful_ is all about me, because it's a song that celebrates resilience. For the same reasons, _Beautiful_ is all about Detroit, and _Beautiful_ is all about Anne, too. And the chorus says exactly the words that I've always wanted to say to her:

_Don't let 'em say you ain't beautiful… just stay true to you…_

This song's something worth my staying for, definitely; in fact, the entire concert's something worth my staying for. It doesn't stop me from anticipating what's coming after, though; it is our wedding night after all, and if _that_ doesn't top Eminem, well, there'd definitely be something wrong with me.

* * *

><p><em>Disclaimer: The songs "My Name Is" and "Beautiful" belong to Eminem. I've also made a nod to Eminem's song "Stan" in this chapter.<em>

_* An FBO (Fixed Base Operator) is a facility that caters to the needs of private aircraft owners. While most FBOs in the US are centred on the provision of fuel, they also have amenities such as lounge, concierge and conference facilities for private jet owners, and private jet sales transactions are sometimes conducted at FBO facilities. At FBOs where maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) operations are also situated, newly-purchased second hand jets may also be brought there for retrofitting of the interior to the new owner's tastes and requirements._

_Chapter Afternote: The Eminem concert in this chapter has several layers of symbolism and significance: (i) the "Beautiful" MTV features the decay of several Detroit landmarks, including the Tiger Stadium, but the act of watching Eminem perform at Comerica Park, the stadium that replaced the demolished Tiger Stadium, is a symbol of resurgence; (ii) the presence of a concert that is "something worth [Frederick] staying for" is a link to the concert in canon; (iii) the development of Eminem's music is a parallel to Frederick's growth and maturation over the years; and (iv) the lyrics of "Beautiful" are a direct allusion to what we're doing in this story - looking at life through Frederick's (and Anne's) eyes and empathising with them._


	15. Flying Pig Squadron

**Chapter 15 – Flying Pig Squadron**

_March 2020_

_Anne_

Dad's finally decided to call it a day at ELMSCO; he's stepping down from the Board, and he'll be formally appointing me as his successor at the Board meeting today. And after the meeting, we'll be hosting a cocktail reception at a little urban farm sponsored by our company; the farm was my idea, my way of helping to put some life back into inner-city Detroit. To me, this little project goes beyond the veneer of corporate social responsibility, because I've got a strong personal interest in it too; it is, after all, a place where Fred spent some of the formative years of his life.

"Anne, you've done the Elliot name proud," he'd said when he told me of his decision. It was the first time he ever said anything like this to me, and I was completely unprepared for the way I melted inside when I heard it. For years – decades – I'd been telling myself that the Elliot name wasn't important to me; that what really mattered were my own values of fairness and integrity. But at that point, it dawned on me that my values and the Elliot name weren't at odds after all; I'd developed my own definition of what it means to be an Elliot, and my own particular brand of the Elliot pride. Pride doesn't have to be arrogance, necessarily. It can be couched in dignity - dignity, restraint and a certain sense of refinement. That's what the Elliot name means to me now, and I'm proud to be a part of the Elliot family at this very moment. Bringing ELMSCO back to its full former glory took seven years of long, hard work; but this year we've finally managed to clear the company's debt, and we can face the world with our heads held high again. And at ELMSCO, I've been able to recapture a little of the magic that drew me to aviation so many years ago; the euphoria of rolling out a brand-new airplane that I'd always dreamed about. Because that magic is the same when you see any project of your own conception come into being; and for me, I experienced it whenever ELMSCO came up with a new product line, or when we launched our very own supply chain management software, a brainchild of mine that brought our customer service to a new level.

_Today, I'm going to become an ELMSCO Board member_. The prospect is as scary as it is exhilarating; when I look at myself in the mirror, with a curling iron in one hand and a can of hairspray in the other, trying to get those Thatcher-esque curls just right, I wonder if I really have grown big enough to fill those lofty shoes.

"Fred, I wish I had more credibility," I say to my computer screen. I'm video-conferencing with Fred to pysch myself up; he's in London right now, and he'll spend the night there before his return flight.

"Anne, you've always had a lot of credibility. Once you open your mouth, nobody would ever doubt that. In fact, you already had credibility when I first got to know you, back when we were just eighteen going on nineteen. And you've gained a lot of maturity since then. Believe me - you've only been getting better and better."

"I don't just mean that kind of credibility," I say, putting the curling iron and the hairspray down in frustration; somehow, no matter what I do, my hair just won't curl the way I want it to. And the straight-haired girl – I mean lady – in the mirror looks much too young to be sitting on the ELMSCO Board. "I want people to take me seriously the minute they look at me, and I'm going to be a Board member now. That makes things different. Board members are supposed to be formidable."

"You're formidable all right; at least, you're formidable to me, and I'm sure our kids will agree," Fred says with a chuckle. "OK. Enough of joking, I'm dead serious now. I don't think you need to look like a tiger lady to be respected or successful at work; aren't you getting a lot of respect already? Sometimes, it's good to keep that little touch of femininity… that's exactly what I love about you."

The lady I see in the mirror, the one Fred sees on his computer screen, is exactly the same straight-haired girl of five minutes ago, but I see her with different eyes now. And I reach for the hairbrush instead of the curling iron, because I realize that I don't have to force myself to look like Thatcher, or anyone else, to be the dignified dame that I want to be. Frederick was absolutely right; I, Anne Elliot Wentworth, am that lady already just the way I am.

* * *

><p><em>Frederick<em>

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is Frederick Wentworth, your captain speaking. In a few minutes, we will be commencing our descent into Detroit Metropolitan Airport…"

Being Captain Wentworth isn't exactly glamorous; not when the vessel I'm captaining is a Boeing 787 Dreamliner on scheduled service. But amongst all the standard procedures I go through on every flight, this is the one I'll never get tired of, because every time I say those words, I'm welcoming my passengers to a place that's very special to me; what I'm really telling them is, "Welcome to my home."

It's been a long time since I was part of an Air Force squadron; and now, I'm still working towards a place in a squadron of a completely different kind – the Flying Pig Squadron of the Cincinnati Marathon. See, everything started with a flying pig, so Anne and I thought it'd be fun to celebrate our being together by going to the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon every year. You become part of the squadron when you've completed ten full marathons, and I've been doing this for seven years already, so I'm more than halfway there by now. Anne's always there to cheer me on but she doesn't run marathons anymore, not after our sons Marshall and Lionel were born; she's been taking it easy, running for fitness and leisure instead. I guess our priorities just have to change as we move on to different stages of our lives.

Back when I was Captain Wentworth and then Major Wentworth in the Air Force, I never thought there'd be a possibility I could be happier outside the military than in it. I'd probably have felt very differently if I'd been deployed to war for the entire ten years, but luckily for me, I wasn't. I still have some very good memories of my Air Force days: the camaraderie I experienced during UPT; my stints as a test pilot where I got a chance to exercise my mind as well as my reflexes, while allowing me to collaborate closely with Harville again in his position at Lockheed; and of course, that year I performed with the Thunderbirds and felt like a rock star.

If there's one part of my history as a fighter pilot that I'd like to change, though, it's that I wish I'd never had to go to war in the first place. War is a very grey concept – at the beginning, I felt patriotic thinking about what 9-11 had done to us and our country, thinking I was going out there to right a big, huge, gigantic wrong. But then when I was out there, seeing the kind of devastation I was causing, it didn't seem to be so right anymore. To be successful as a soldier, you've got to desensitize yourself, though, and so that's exactly what I did, just to carry on and survive. Like all soldiers, I did get nightmares too, only I learned how to live through them. I learned to toughen myself up so that I'd be virtually invulnerable; I was Captain Wentworth after all.

I might've believed myself to be invulnerable as long as I was Captain Wentworth in the US Air Force; but when my service obligation ended and Sophia begged me to move back to Detroit, I felt more vulnerable than ever before. You see, the military was the only life I'd known up till then, and I guess I could've gotten drunk off my success. In the Air Force, I was a hero; but civilian life, family life, that was entirely alien to me. I'd had a shot at reaching out for a proper family life once, when I proposed to Anne, and I'd failed miserably in that attempt.

But now, with 20/20 hindsight of course, I know I couldn't possibly have chosen a better path in life, because I'm much happier being the Captain Wentworth I am now than the Captain Wentworth I used to be in the past. I'm no longer a nomad, a roving vagabond; I've got stability, permanence and a wonderful family to live for. I'm not sure if I could still pass for being a dashing military hero today; I try my very best to keep the middle-age spread at bay, but I know that at my age, I'd have been grounded for good long ago even if I'd stayed put in the Air Force. When my family's there, though, it doesn't matter whether I'm at the helm of a fighter jet or an airliner; I'm still a hero to them just the same. Sophia and Tiffany did me the best favor of my life the day they brought me back to Detroit, and I guess Anne has too, when she married me and we set up our home together. They've humanized me.

This is Frederick Wentworth, your captain speaking. On behalf of all my crew aboard Delta Airlines Flight DL5 from London to Detroit, it has been a pleasure serving you and we hope you have enjoyed the flight. We will be commencing our descent into Detroit Metropolitan Airport shortly, and the estimated time of arrival at our gate will be 2:05 pm local time. The weather is partly cloudy, and the ground temperature is approximately 45 degrees Fahrenheit. If Detroit is your final destination, we wish you a warm welcome home; and if you are continuing onto another flight, we wish you a pleasant onward journey to your final destination. Cabin crew, to your landing stations please.

* * *

><p><em>Marshall (as dictated to Anne)<em>

Hi. My name's Marshall. Marshall Wentworth. I'm five years old, and I'm in kindergarten. I brought Flat Daddy to school for Show and Tell today. Daddy's a Captain and he flies a big airplane. He flies a lot, but he always comes back because he loves us very much. Mommy loves us, too. She's like an angel. She's good like an angel, and she's pretty like an angel. And she sings like an angel too. And I've got a little brother, his name's Lionel. But we always call him Leo. He's three years old. Sometimes he's cute, but sometimes he makes me real mad. But I love him anyway. And then there's Aunt Sophie, and Aunt Mary, and Uncle Charles, and Great-Uncle Henry, and Great-Aunt Lucy, and my cousins. I've got three cousins: their names are Charlie, Wally and Tiffany. There's also Uncle Ed in England, we talk to him on the computer on Saturdays. And Mommy says there's Grandpa Walter and Aunt Liz too, but they don't see us very much. We live in Detroit. This is my home, and this is my family. And I love them. All of them.

* * *

><p><em>Charlie<em>

Today has to be the worst day of my life ever, because Tiger Kelly stuffed me into a locker at school. Yup, that's right; he STUFFED ME IN A LOCKER. I just couldn't stand it, you know, the way he was chatting up Tiffany and all. She's gotten to be real pretty now, and I guess that's why all the guys at school are going after her, but I hate the sight of her hanging out with a kid like Tiger, and that's why I butted in to tell him not to talk to her again. That's when Tiger tossed me in.

"Go back to where you belong, Charlie Brown," he'd said.

The worst part of it was this – the locker door couldn't close properly with me in it, and when I pushed myself back out, everyone was there watching the show. I've never felt so embarrassed before.

And Mom wasn't any help at all, just like I expected. She just kept going on and on about how crummy the school system is, and how she should've homeschooled me and Wally instead. I wouldn't want that, for sure; being stuck at home with Mom all day is just as bad as any of the teasing I get at school. As for Grandpa and Grandma, they said that all this is part and parcel of life, and that I'd get over it. I wouldn't expect them to understand, because they keep telling us kids about how they had it so hard growing up right after World War II, and how we got it so good compared to them. Wally just laughed, until I told him if he didn't stop, I'd stuff _him_ in a locker to show him what it was like.

So nobody at home has any idea about how crummy I feel, and that's why I'm walking over to Uncle Fred and Aunt Anne's house. I'm sure Aunt Anne will know exactly what to say to make me feel better; she always does. Only thing is, when I get there, it turns out Uncle Fred's the one who's at home today; I guess this must be one of those days he isn't flying.

"Where's Aunt Anne?" I ask. "I wanna talk to her."

"She hasn't come home from the office yet," Uncle Fred says. "What is it, Charles?"

He's been calling me "Charles" since I was ten; he'd said I was growing into a man, and so he'd start treating me like one. But everyone else still calls me "Charlie", and Mom still hugs and kisses me in public, even though I've told her not to do it so many times. Most of the time I like it that Uncle Fred treats me like I'm grown up, but today, I just want someone to baby me and give me some sympathy, and I know that's not what I'm going to get from Uncle Fred.

I don't really want to tell him, but I don't have a choice, do I?

"Let's go over there to talk," I say, pointing to the farthest corner of the living room, away from where Marshall and Leo are playing. It's bad enough that Wally knows already, and this is one of the things I hope my little cousins will never get to hear about. "It's private."

"Your grandpa's right," says Uncle Fred after he hears my sad story. "Such things happen all the time and you'll have to learn how to deal with this, and worse, as you grow older. I should know – I've been thrown into a locker before, and I was miserable about it just the way you are, but a lot of worse things have happened to me before and after that incident, and I still survived. I'm still in one piece, aren't I?"

"You're kidding me," I scoff. Uncle Fred used to make up all kinds of tall tales to make me and Wally laugh when we were little kids, and I'm pretty sure this is yet another one of them. "You're Captain Wentworth. You're a hero. And I've always wanted to be just like you when I grow up. Nobody would ever stuff you into a locker; they wouldn't dare. And besides, you wouldn't fit into one. I don't, and I'm only thirteen."

"No, I'm not kidding; I'm as serious as I could possibly get. These kinds of things happen to everybody, and it just happened that you were the unlucky kid who got bullied today. It happened to me too, when I was the new kid changing schools right in the middle of seventh grade. And when I was thirteen, I was scrawny. I was barely tall enough for my BMX bike, and people thought I was a fifth grader. Next time, they'll move on to somebody else and forget about you. That's exactly how transient these things are, so you shouldn't let it get you down."

It never occurred to me before that anyone would ever bully Uncle Fred; to me, he's always been larger than life. But even though this new thought makes me feel just a little bit better, I still wish somebody would fuss over me in the way they used to do when I was younger.

"But, Uncle Fred, don't you even feel just a _little_ bit sorry for me?" I plead. "If Aunt Anne was at home, I'm sure she'd give me more sympathy than that."

"Charles." He musses my hair up affectionately. "One of the most important things I've ever learned is that life is full of problems and difficulties, and things will never get any better if you just let yourself wallow every time you hit a rough patch. Your Aunt Anne was already my girlfriend way back in college, did you know that? But she broke up with me after her grandma got cancer, making a sacrifice because she thought I wouldn't be able to carry on with my career in the Air Force if she stayed with me. I didn't understand her reasons at that time, so when that happened, I was devastated and for many years, I did nothing about it except feel sorry for myself. And I would never have gotten back together with her if I hadn't snapped out of my self-pity."

He goes on to tell me, for the first time, the whole story of how he met Aunt Anne, lost her, and then got back together with her again. And boy, what a story it is.

* * *

><p><strong>THE END<strong>

_Disclaimer: The character Tiger Kelly is from the "Ginger Meggs" comics. I believe we all know where Charlie Brown comes from!_

_Afterword: The Head Fake_

_If you've read or listened to Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture", you'll be familiar with the concept of "the head fake". It's when your story has a message, or messages, which are hidden within its subtext but are the real things you want your audience to take away._

_In the case of this story and its prequel "Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I", this tale is deliberately designed to function at several different levels. First and foremost, my mission was to re-create the story of "Persuasion" faithfully and respectfully with the context and values of the 21st century, to show how this timeless tale still has a very strong relevance to us in modern times, despite the many advancements in society that have made the socioeconomic chasm between the young Frederick Wentworth and Anne Elliot much less daunting than it would have been in Austen's time._

_For many of us today, I think the key themes of "Persuasion" that still resonate with us is the concept of compromising on our dreams for family or for others; and sometimes being the "invisible" person, being there for friends or family without necessarily getting due recognition or acknowledgement. Definitely, I believe many of our moms today would fall into that category! But in addition to those themes, I wanted to build on the story as an allegory for the modern economy; the hubris of the Elliots reflecting the decay of sunset industries and the rise of corporate greed; as juxtaposed against the brave new world of science, technology and innovation, where money may still matter, but passion, ability and a sense of adventure will always be the catalyst without which new things can never happen. _

_In this re-telling, I've also weighed in heavily on several themes that were not really intended in Austen's original, but are highly relevant in our world today: the many ways that families manifest themselves, spanning across generations and sometimes across countries as well; the painful process of growing up, battling peer pressure, finding your direction in life, and eventually having to cope with your dreams clashing with the reality of adult responsibilities; and the complex swirl of emotions surrounding terminal illness and facing the end of life. It's deliberately intended to be a portrait of contemporary life, especially as seen by the sandwich generation of today; and as it turned out, it's a double coming-of-age story, showing that even as it's approaching middle age, this in-between generation is still actively learning, evolving, maturing and growing._

_I also believe that true love is like an everlasting friendship, based on understanding, support and caring for each other's welfare. In popular belief, Austen's stories are about the "perfect" relationship with the "perfect" gentleman whom you can only find in fairy tales; this story is about distilling and demystifying Austen to bring out the Austen gentleman or gentlewoman in that regular Joe or Jane in your life. And this brings me to my last head fake: true love can come in many forms. At the literal level, Anne and Frederick's relationship is a romantic love story, and intended to be read as such. But for many of us, true love may not come from just one person or one relationship. And I believe that all of us - regardless of our marital or relationship status - have such a person or persons in our lives; we just need to pay a little more attention to the people around us to notice who they are._

_This story is dedicated to all the young people out there who have big dreams and are working very hard to achieve them, and especially to some special friends who have shared their lives with me. You know who you are, because I've sent you this story. Live your dreams! _


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